


Trust the Instinct

by Nyxelestia (orphan_account)



Series: Abandoned or Hiatus [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Argent Family, Canon-Typical Torture, Canon-Typical Violence, Creepy Gerard, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Gen, Hale Pack, M/M, McCall Pack, Medical Inaccuracies, Other, Stalking, Themes of Bodily Autonomy, Themes of Sexual or Sexualized Abuse, Themes of Violations of Bodily Autonomy, anger issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2018-12-31 22:39:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12142653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Nyxelestia
Summary: (this fic has been abandoned)Scott and Derek don't like each other, their packs even less so, and no one is interested in working together. But between Gerard, the Kanima, and whoever its master is, they don't really have a choice.Scott tries to keep everyone alive. Stiles tries to keep his friends and family from dying. Allison tries not to wish she was dead. Jackson and Lydia are desperately not admitting they're losing their minds, Derek is a failure of an alpha, and his betas don't even notice because of how upside-down their worlds have become. Chris wants to know what's happening to his family, the Sheriff wants to know what's going on in this weird town, and Danny wants to know what it is that no one is telling him.Welcome to Beacon Hills.Everyone has a story.(akaMy rewrite of Teen Wolf as I wish the show had gone, and multi-POV companion anthology to Talking Cure.)





	1. (06) Scott - Gerard Knows, With a Knife

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally its own series, but is now being merged into Winter Wolves. You can find out more about it **[here](http://nyxelestia.tumblr.com/post/165541662135/merging-two-aus-into-one)**.
> 
> The story POV, and the corresponding chapters of Talking Cure, are in the chapter titles. Due to the wide-spanning and disparate nature of the story, the story tags are just general or recurring themes. Chapter summaries have more content notes and tags, including trigger warnings.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Scott rescues Derek and Stiles from the pool, Gerard corners him violently - and makes a threat Scott can't ignore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Notes for Ch. 1: (06) Scott - Gerard Knows, With a Knife**
> 
> **Chapter Tags:** Torture, Aftermath of Torture, Assault, Stabbing, Creepy Gerard, Medical Procedures, Medical Inaccuracies
> 
>  **Content Warning:** This chapter surrounds a violent yet intimate assault with a violation of bodily autonomy. AKA while not sexual assault, it is a little rapey. Use your browsers Find function to look for "Everything's fine." if you need to skip that.
> 
> Disclaimer: it's not a scene of my own making, I just wrote Scott's POV of [this scene](http://nyxelestia.tumblr.com/post/165502037764/most-teen-wolf-fans-remember-the-infamous-pool) from canon. I honestly don't think I can do that scene justice, so I do encourage you to watch it. >:)
> 
> This takes place during [Chapter 6](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6482827/chapters/24656760) of Talking Cure.

In front of the Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, Scott stepped out of his mom's car, felt a hand on his shoulder whirl him around, and felt a dagger stab right through his stomach.

Scott felt the breath punched out of him with a strangled gasp as he heard his own insides _squelch_ under the sharp assault. As his entire stomach erupted in agony, Scott jerked, having no thought beyond _get away please stop it hurts get away_. But the hand on his shoulder tightened to a crushing grip that kept him right where he didn't want to be.

"Don't move!" Gerard Argent commanded, in a horrifically even tone of voice.

As if Scott even _could_ move. With the painfully strong hand on his shoulder and the knife in his stomach, he couldn't do anything except stare up at his principal.

Which seemed to be exactly what he wanted.

"You know, I can practically feel the tissue around the blade already trying to heal," Gerard said, glinting in the hospital's outdoor lights as he tightened his grip and _shook the blade_. "You never know with a beta!" Scott felt his gut roiling around the blade like he was going to throw up but the blade kept everything down, even his tears-

"And besides," Gerard continued, as if nothing were happening, as if Scott wasn't in possibly the greatest pain of his _life_. "We'd lose this perfect picture." Scott cringed as he felt the papery skin of the old man's hand creeping up his neck.

"The kind old grandfather..." He tried and failed to flinch away from the achingly paternal grip, could do nothing as the man leaned in for a _hug_ of all things. His scent over took everything else, leaving Scott unable to smell anything but the man himself, a smell that was...oddly familiar – and confusing. He couldn't place it, and he just wanted it to _go away please_. "...embracing his grandson..." Scott shivered, even though it further jarred the blade in his stomach, at the warm breath curdling over his ear. "...after hearing good news from the doctor." Scott's vision started to darken around the edges, hands shaking and scrabbling and failing to find purchase on anything except Gerard himself.

"That's right!" he said, as he finally pulled away. Scott could've cried in relief at that alone, however slight. Except the blade was still tearing him up from the inside out, drowning out all feeling save for the hand still curled around his neck.

"I can play the nice, doddering grandpa who likes to cook and tell stories and be sweet and charming..." The man's hand came up and ruffled his hair like an affectionate grandfather would – like his own father used to do, long ago back when he still cared that he _had_ a son. Scott grit his teeth and refused to flinch, even though it felt almost worse than the stab-wound. At least that was supposed to hurt. Scott wanted to curl away from the touch that was supposed to be comforting, but he still couldn't move. All he could do was feel, feel the knife in his belly and the hand trailing down from his hair to his neck.

"And trust me, I can do it far better than you playing average, broken-hearted teenage boy." He shook the blade again, and Scott whimpered, choking on his groan of pain and fear as pain overtook him. For a moment, he couldn't see anything at all, couldn't feel anything except the dagger that Gerard was still controlling, almost twisting it inside him.

"Are you listening?" Gerard demanded.

"Yes," Scott grit out. Right now, Gerard was the only thing he could hear – hear, see, _feel_. His entire world was narrowed down Gerard.

"Perfect," the man purred, drawing out the world like it was something seductive. "Now, you're gonna do me a favor, one of these days, and you're gonna do it, because if you don't, this knife goes in her."

He turned his head, and Scott followed his gaze to the front doors – and through it, his mom, blissfully unaware of what was happening to him just a few dozen yards away. Shaking finger refusing to even _touch_ the blade inside him, Scott shivered at the idea of his mom feeling anything like this – at her _dying_ like this, because he had no delusions about what Gerard was really threatening him with. She wouldn't survive this, but Scott would.

He already was. He could feel his flesh trying to heal, too. The burn of his flesh growing beyond his control paled in comparison to the sharp coldness of the blade, of metal and air on organs and flesh that were never supposed to feel either.

"Scott."

Breathing heavily, trying desperately not to cry, he turned back to Gerard.

I truly believe that it's so much easier when bad things don't have to happen to good people," he said, then drove the knife in even deeper. Scott couldn't hold back the whimper, this time, or the gasp of pain as he flinched away, doing nothing to dislodge the knife inside him.

"Don't you agree?" Gerard asked with that _sweet_ and _charming_ smile.

"...Yes," Scott agreed through gritted teeth.

Without pause, and without another word, Gerard pulled out the knife, turned around, and walked away.

Scott gasped, nearly doubling over, at the cold rush of air over his flesh and his muscle and blood vessels and internal organs.

And over the feeling of his flesh squirming and expanding, already trying to heal around it.

Finally managing to look up – to _stand_ upright – Scott saw Gerard's back as he walked away. Almost perfectly and unintentionally in step with him, Mom made her way over to the car, checking something on her phone. "Hey there," she called out as as she approached.

He had to hide this from her.

She couldn't know, _no one_ could know about this, because this wound was already starting to heal far faster than could ever be possible for a human. By tomorrow morning, it would be mostly gone, if not completely. In a day, there wouldn't even be a scar.

And then he could pretend this never happened. (Except for Gerard threatening his mother – Scott couldn't afford to forget that.)

Swallowing down on every scream of pain clawing its way out of his throat, Scott bunched up his shirt over the stab wound, tying it in a knot, then zipped up his hoodie and prayed.

"You okay, sweetie?" Mom asked when she finally looked up from her phone.

That was probably the biggest understatement of his life.

Chest heaving, Scott lied, "Yeah, fine." As mom opened the passenger door, Scott tried to convince himself, "Everything's fine."

Except when he hissed in pain, mom must've heard, because she stood back up. It took him a moment to notice, because this time, she didn't even try asking him anything. She just gave him a _look_.

Scott smiled shakily. "I, uh – got nervous at the Argents and over-ate. Stomach hurts now." He thought about trying to drive like this and said, "I swerved twice on the way here, actually."

She immediately started coming around the car, making a shooing motion with her hand. "Then I'll drive."

"Mom-"

"Go," she ordered, pointing to the passenger seat, and Scott 'reluctantly' agreed, going around the back of the car and easing himself into the seat. "Wow, you really had it bad, huh?"

"...yeah..." Scott said. "It was, um, awkward."

"You sure it wasn't food-poisoning?" Mom asked, starting the car. She sounded like she considered it a legitimate possibility. "They are pretty overprotective of their daughter. Having her ex-boyfriend over..."

"Nah," Scott said, and then tried not to make any noise whatsoever when Mom suddenly braked for another car. "J-just. Me."

Mom hummed in agreement. Thank god she'd come off a double, and had to devote all her attention to driving – and didn't notice that Scott was in way more pain than a stomach-ache would warrant.

Oh, god, it hurt. It hurt so. Damn. Much.

His vision was starting to black out, again, just staring out the window. Every turn the car made had him biting his lip to keep from screaming in pain. He would've cried in relief when they finally pulled into the driveway at home, if it wouldn't have made Mom too suspicious.

The longer this went on, the easier it was to suppress his tears.

Getting Mom not to pry into his stomachache was thankfully short work – she was exhausted after her double-shift. Once he convinced her that his problem was nothing a heating pad, personal time with a toilet, and a bit of sleep wouldn't fix, she bid him goodnight and went to her room, literally swaying on her feet as she went. Scott was sure she was going to just collapse onto her bed.

He went into the bathroom, locked the door, and collapsed into the bathtub, himself.

It took two tries to peel off his hoodie, especially since the blood had started to seep through. His hand was coated in it from literally holding himself together in the half hour since Gerard walked away from him. He didn't even try with his shirt, instead fished out his phone and called Stiles.

"Hey, Scott, I'm kind of-"

"Need your help," Scott gasped into the phone. He leaned his head back against the tiles, shutting his eyes at the pain and the feeling of blood dripping down his body. "Now."

"What-"

"Stabbed," Scott said. "Gerard...stabbed me..."

"Oh, sh-"

Scott tried to curl up, then tried to stretch out. The least painful option involved contorting himself so his legs were half curled under him and he was slumped diagonally across the wall of the bathtub. He squirmed, listening to and not hearing Stiles' voice on the phone, until he gasped as he found the least painful position possible.

"Scott?" Stiles said, sounding like he'd been saying it a lot. He sounded panicked, an all too familiar sound these days. "How bad are we talking?"

Scott whimpered into the phone.

"Oh, god," Stiles said. "Maybe you should call an ambulance, your mom, someone-"

"N-no," Scott said. "Can't...explain it...can I?"

Stiles continued to curse as he moved around wherever he was. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes, okay, just hold on."

"Can't...do...else..." Scott mumbled. "Mom's home."

Stiles cursed again. "Make it twenty. Just hold on for twenty minutes, okay?"

Scott hummed into the phone, and then a few moments later there was silence. He let go, hearing the phone clattering on the tile floor. He hoped it didn't break.

Now that he no longer needed to do anything, he used both hands to clutch at his stomach, and tried to breathe as little as possible.

He may have done it too well and passed out, or maybe all the agony swallowed up his sense of time. Either way, it felt like someone was picking the lock of the bathroom door in both forever and no time at all. Stiles slipped in, eyes wide and terrified as he closed the door behind him.

"Dude!" he hissed, setting down a backpack on the toilet lid. "What the hell were you thinking-"

"Can't...hospital..." Scott murmured, looking up at him. "Please," he implored, the plea stretching out on a groan. He didn't even know what he was asking for, anymore.

Thankfully, Stiles did. With a frustrated and all-too-human growl, he tore open his bag as he said, "I'm going to have to cut your clothes off."

Scott nodded weakly, his temple rubbing against the warming tiles. "Whatever, just...make it stop...please..."

Stiles pulled some kind of medical kit, and extracted a pair of surgical scissors from it. He knelt down by Scott, then asked one last time, "Are you sure you don't want professional-"

"M'mom can'know!" Scott slurred out.

Stiles sighed, and started cutting away at Scott's shirt, hissing as he revealed more and more of the blood and the wound.

"God, Scotty..." Stiles murmured. He pulled out a roll of paper-towels from his backpack, ripping off several sheets at once and wetting them in the sink before wiping down Scott. Unfortunately, while it wasn't gushing anymore, it was still bleeding a lot.

Still, Scott stared at his best friend when he fished under the bathroom cabinet and came out with the spare box of tampons Mom always kept there.

"Seriously?" Scott asked with a jolt, only to groan and slump back when the movement tugged at the edges of his wound.

"These things were made to staunch blood," Stiles snapped, unwrapping one. "They were meant for bullet wounds in World War One. Then nurses in the military hospitals noticed how useful they were for periods."

Scott rolled his eyes, but didn't object when Stiles pushed a tampon out of its applicator and into the wound. He would probably be grossed out by it tomorrow morning, but right now he could not care less beyond the fact it hurt.

But even he could see the usefulness. He wasn't spilling more blood across his skin as Stiles was still cleaning it up.

Confident that Stiles knew what he was doing – or close enough – Scott leaned his head back and closed his eyes in exhaustion as Stiles wiped him down.

"So Gerard knows you're a werewolf?" Stiles asked finally.

"Yeah..." Scott swallowed, remembering the entire encounter. It was only a few minutes, but it still shook him to his core. Gerard had been friendly and even intimate as he stuck a knife in Scott's gut and literally twisted it. "Said he could feel me healing around the knife...when he was holding it." He shuddered. "He _enjoyed_ it."

Stiles grimaced, turning to pull a plastic bottle from the backpack. "That is creepy and wrong on so many levels. God, Scott – how are you even alive? What did he want?"

Scott winced as the overwhelming scent of rubbing alcohol hit him as soon as Stiles unscrewed the bottle cap. But it was alcohol and something else, something faintly herbal Scott always smelled when Deaton treated him. It was never used on any other animals. Looking over, Scott realized it was a bottle he'd actually seen at Deaton's office. Stiles must've stolen it.

He watched as Stiles folded up one of the paper towels and doused it with the supernaturally treated disinfectant.

"Said I...said he needed a..." Scott hissed at the first dab of Stiles' impromptu disinfectant wipe. "Do him a..." Another pained hiss. "Favor or he'd...hurt m-mom."

Stiles paused, looking as scared as Scott felt, but shook himself out of it in an instant. Scott only watched as Stiles fished around his bag until he could pull out a needle and thread. He also started tapping at his phone. Scott shut his eyes as he realized Stiles was looking up how to stitch someone up.

Jesus. Out of all the things to do off of an online tutorial, this had to be one of their worst ideas yet. But even Scott could see they didn't have any better options.

Stiles grimaced at the needle as he looked between it and Scott's skin. However, he took a look up at Scott's face, and that seemed to harden his resolve.

He still looked nauseous as he brought the needle to Scott's skin. Well, at least he was already by the toilet if he puked.

Scott whimpered when Stiles pulled out the tampon, already blood-soaked, and wiped the wound down with Deaton's antiseptic. He winced as he felt the needle pierce his skin.

At least it felt nothing like a dagger.

Stile was literally stitching him up. In his bathtub. God, Deaton was going to be pissed if – when – Scott asked him to check the wound tomorrow.

"Did he say what the favor would be?" Stiles asked, trying to distract Scott from the pain.

Scott shook his head, letting go of his bite on his hand.

"He..." he took a medium breath – any deeper and he hurt the wound. "He smelled so weird."

"Weird, how?" Stiles asked, words steady even as his voice shook. "C'mon, Scott, keep talking to me."

Scott swallowed, looking away from where Stiles was stitching him up. "Sick," he mumbled. "It's – I've smelled it before. On some of the animals. And around the hospital. He's really, really sick...and not just in the head."

Stiles laughed with no humor whatsoever, entire upper body bent over the edge of the tub and Scott's stomach. "That doesn't exactly help us much."

Staring at the top of Stiles' head, Scott said, "Actually, I think it does."

"How?" Stiles asked. He turned his attention away from the immediate wound to poke at a gash running from Scott's right pec, over his sternum, and down his left side. "And why isn't _this_ one healing?"

"Wounds inflicted by Alphas heal differently," Scott recited."Especially if it's...Intent...like with a Bite. And new Alphas...want to make pack...have a lot of Intent. Lasts for months. Don't always remember to hold back...hard to hold back...'s what Deaton said..."

This time, there was a trace of dark humor when Stiles laughed. "Okay, so how does Gerard being sick help us in any way?"

Scott frowned in thought. "Have to see...what his favor is...but – he's weak. Somehow." He swallowed, and remembered the first time he learned about the Hippocratic Oath. "Can use that against him. Hopefully."

Stiles was quiet, and it made Scott nervous – despite seeing how much Stiles was trying to concentrate on what he was doing. Stiles processed by talking through ideas and conclusions, ripping them apart outloud even when his brain was miles ahead of whatever he was actually saying.

A quiet Stiles scared him.

"Even if he's sick," Stiles said, voice flat in the way it only got when Stiles was trying to hide his actual feelings. What was he trying to hide from Scott? "He was still strong enough to cut a werewolf in half with a sword."

Terror.

Stiles would try to hide his fear. He always tried, and never quite succeeded.

"I know," Scott said. He flexed his fingers, brushing against Stiles' hands where they pressed the gaping hole in his stomach that Stiles was still trying to close. "Believe me. He was strong. Is. I know." It was hard to get out full sentences between the feeling of air on his internal organs oh god and Stiles sewing his body back together. Scott could barely think through the pain. "But...h'has...the advantage. I need one, too."

"We!" Stiles snapped, tugging on the thread. " _We_ need an advantage."

Scott bit his lip and jerked his head in what he hoped Stiles understood was a nod. "And this might be it."

Stiles snorted, and sat back on his heels. Scott blinked, and looked down to see that Stiles was done. He inched his fingertips closer, inspecting the stitching carefully.

"This is good," he said as Stiles cleaned up his supplies. "Really good. Deaton'll be proud."

"He should be able to take them out for you by tomorrow," Stiles said, frowning and inspecting the wound. "It should be gone completely in a few days, maybe a week tops. Right?"

"Everything goes away eventually," Scott said. "Even the stuff from before," he added, quiet and bitter. The bite scars he got from Roxy had disappeared within days of the Bite he got from Peter, and Scott...kind of missed them, despite all the bad memories they brought up. On the plus side, though, the scar from his 'fall' down the stairs was also gone.

"Right," Stiles said, shoving everything into his backpack. "Can't do anything about those. You need anything else, though? Because I gotta get back home, and get ready for my flight."

Scott winced and sat up as carefully as possible. "Grab some pajamas? For me? I need to shower. Wash off the blood."

Stiles nodded, slinking out the door as Scott made his way to his feet. He kept a tight grip on the handle of the glass door of the shower, wincing at the bloody handprints all over it. And the bloody clothes on the tile floor by the toilet. And the blood in the tub.

At least there was no blood on the bathmat. That would've been hard to clean up. As it was, Scott had to remember to replace the towels, because those had some drops of blood, too.

"Here," Stiles said, slipping back in to set some clothes on the counter by the sink. "Anything else?"

Scott shook his head. "Thank you. So much, for this, for all of this-"

"Don't worry about it," Stiles said, smiling softly and gripping Scott's shoulder. "You're my brother in every way that counts, I'll always help you. I'd even hug you, except right now you're covered in blood so let's not."

Scott smiled, experimenting with letting go of his side. No new blood came up.

He turned his head to try and congratulate Stiles on a job well done, only to see Stiles taking a deep breath – like he was bracing himself for something.

"I can probably cancel my trip," he said finally. "Dad and Steve will be disappointed, and Dad'll be pissed, but I can do it, and stay here to help you."

Stay here to help Scott...and stay within easy reach of Gerard's knife.

Mr. and Mrs. Argent weren't tell him that Scott was a werewolf – which meant Gerard figured it out on his own. And he must already know that Stiles was his best friend. If he noticed that, and that Stiles was sticking close to Lydia, and all his other involvement...he might jump to conclusions.

Like the conclusion that Stiles would survive what Scott just went through.

"No," Scott said, shaking his head. "Go," he insisted, still struggling to get anything more than disconnected words out through the ache in his entire torso.

Stiles opened his mouth, but Scott repeated, " _Go._ "

With a grim swallow and a determined look on his face, Stiles shouldered his backpack and opened the door. He was about to step out, before pausing and looking back at Scott.

"Hey," he said, voice soft and smile encouraging. "We'll figure this out. Promise."

Slumping against the tiled wall in relief, Scott nodded. "Thank you."

Rather than answering, Stiles saluted jauntily with two fingers, then left, locking and closing the door behind him.

With a sigh, Scott turned his attention back to his most immediate problem: how to get these pants off so he could take a shower.

It was the only problem he had the energy to worry about, right now.


	2. (08) Allison - Eavesdropping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Warning:** Teenagers making light of the concept of a mass shooting or attempted mass murder at their school.
> 
> This takes place during [Chapter 8](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6482827/chapters/27686883) of Talking Cure.

A scant few days after Gerard put a knife in her boyfriend and twisted it, he called Allison into his office, put his fingers on her neck right over her pulse, and asked, "Have you noticed Scott behaving strangely, lately?"

She hated the way her lip quivered, due in equal parts to terror and revulsion, as she said, "No. I mean, I don't - I don't know."

The finger slipped away from her neck, but there was no relief since the motion was accompanied by Gerard saying, "Your pulse jumped."

"It's because you're scaring me!" she cried out.

No wonder Mom and Dad didn't ever introduce them before now.

(If this is what Dad and Kate grew up with, then no wonder Kate went crazy - the real question is why Dad didn't.)

"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart," Gerard said, not even bothering to try and sound sincere. "That was definitely going way too far."

"No kidding," Allison said, clutching her bookbag to her chest and trying not to shiver under his gaze.

"It wasn't right for me to use tactics like that," he said. Allison bit back a sharp rhetorical question about why that only occurred to him after she said so. "I'm sorry," he repeated, with as little sincerity as the first time he said it. "You can go back to class. Go ahead."

She could still feel Gerard's cold, papery fingers on her neck as she left. She knew she looked terrible, but she barely kept herself from crying as it was. She couldn't be bothered to pull on the mask of polite disinterest she'd been wearing ever since the whole town found out what her aunt did.

As soon as she cleared the administrative hall, she all-but-ran to the nearest girls' bathroom. Muttering hasty apologies as she went, she cut through a pair of girls and into the empty bathroom, shouldering her way into the stall and locking it behind her. Dropping onto the toilet seat, she snatched up a bunch of toilet paper and pressed it to her face when she couldn't hold back the sobbing any more.

God, first Kate, then Gerard, now Mom. And she didn't even know what to think about Dad, these days.

Her entire family was working to kill her best friends - her only friends, now.

Scott was definitely a werewolf, Lydia was _something_ , and Stiles, her one human friend left, was across the country.

At least somebody got to take a break from this mess and enjoy themselves.

Scooting back on the toilet seat, she brought her knees up to bury her face in them, trying to breathe in the way Mom taught her. Intro to How to Stop Crying and Hide Your Feelings 101, that had been a weird week, but one which Allison was now grateful for. She probably would have been grateful for it then, too, if she hadn't still been reeling from watching a werewolf slash Aunt Kate's neck open.

And from finding out Aunt Kate was a psychopath.

And that werewolves existed.

And that her boyfriend was one of them.

She hiccupped once, held her breath, and then kept breathing deep and controlled to bring down her heartrate. Her bag dug into her gut, but she kept breathing with her entire torso.

Just like Scott had learned from the Black Widow, and taught Allison in turn.

"Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent," she murmured into her knees, the quiet declaration ringing through her head in Mom's voice.

Allison kept saying it to herself - a mantra which her entire family swore by to manage their feelings.

Werewolves could smell feelings. One always had to remain calm in the field, and however morbid the motto was, it was at least useful in giving her something to say, something to focus on, over and over and over again.

We hunt those who hunt us. Except she didn't even know for sure who was hunting her, so who was she supposed to hunt?

Still, at least her breathing was calm. She was just deciding whether she actually needed to use the bathroom when she heard the main door open.

"Is she still in here?" one girl asked. Allison tried to remember her name. Harley? Haley?

"Looks empty," another girl said, one whose name was definitely Anna. At least Allison assumed it was her, given that's who Harley was usually around.

"Guess she's gone," Harley said, sounding oddly…relieved.

Allison didn't blame her.

"Wonder what she was crying about?" Anna asked.

"The more important question is what she'll do about whatever it was that upset her in the first place," Harley said. The two girls stopped just past the sink, in front of the mirrors. In here to fix their make-up and chat, then.

The new make-up Allison had probably wouldn't be smudged much, if at all. It would be enough for her to get through the day, let her catch up with Scott and Stiles to let them know about Jackson's family. It would be the only way for the boys to know without her own family being alerted by a suspiciously-timed call on her phone.

"What do you mean?" she heard.

"I mean, is she going to end up like one of those crazy school shooters?" Harley asked, and Allison froze, eyes locked onto the coat-hook on the door of her stall as Harley's question echoed through the whole bathroom.

Were they talking about her?

"You really think so?"

"Maybe, I mean - what if she follows in her aunt's footsteps or whatever?"

They were.

Oh, god.

Allison knew it was bad. She couldn't miss the weird looks or how no one wanted to talk to her these days. And the stuff people said about her family...

It had been assuaged lately with her grandpa and mom taking jobs at the school for free to make up for some understaffing and budget cuts. There were statements about trying to make it up to the community all over the town newspaper and the school's website. Familial penance to make up for their family member's heinous actions.

Of course, those usually had little impact on students' opinions of each other.

But to think she would start killing her classmates, her friends-

Well.

Her family was already trying to make her do exactly that.

"Wouldn't she just burn down the school, then?" Anna asked.

"Shoot us up, burn us down, we'd all still be dead if Allison goes off the deep end like her aunt."

"She wouldn't burn us down, not with her mom and grandpa here."

"Let's hope."

Swallowing, Allison dropped her feet, and could see the slight jerks and then sudden stiffness in the girls' feet and shins before she stood up. With a deep breath, she shouldered her bag and stepped out of the stall.

It was, indeed, Harley and Anna. They were both frozen, holding make-up halfway to their faces with their cosmetic bags on the little shelf in front of the mirror. Both of them stared at her with wide eyes, hands trembling in mid-air.

Allison's make-up was mostly still in place. Lydia wasn't kidding about it being "everything but actual remover"-proof.

She only had to use the little smudger on the back end of her eyeliner to clean up and redo the line, and a bit of foundation touch-up. Her eyes were still a little puffy, but it would take a lot more time than Allison was willing to devote to fix that. Satisfied, she turned sharply on her toes to leave - the other two girls still frozen in shock.

And the barest hint of fear.

Let them be scared. At least Allison wouldn't be alone.

As she trotted through the halls, she got several more odd looks, especially at her eyes, but no one stopped to talk to her or ask if she was okay.

Of course not. She was Kate Argent's niece. If anything was wrong, they didn't want to know. Fortunately, that was exactly what Allison needed, right now.

At least, if her family asked about her odd behavior for the last half of the school day, she now had a fantastic excuse they couldn't even try to do anything about.

As one of the best spies in the world told her her through Scott, and as her own family taught her: the strongest lies came from a grain of truth.


	3. (10) Allison - Helium and Stupidity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warning:** References to past abuse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place during [Chapter 10](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6482827/chapters/29443026) of Talking Cure.

Allison didn't have enhanced hearing of any kind, but she didn't need it to know that most of the school called her _that arsonist's niece_. She heard the usual lull in conversation that followed her everywhere these days as she walked into the chemistry room, and instead scanned the room until she found Scott waiting for her.

As soon as she sat by him, he leaned against her.

"...how's the stomach?" she asked quietly. She looked down, half expecting to see blood-spots on his shirt. Of course, there was nothing.

"It's fine," Scott murmured, nuzzling his temple against her shoulder for a moment before sitting up. "Doesn’t hurt anymore, promise."

She swallowed around the lump in her throat, the one that's been lodged there ever since Stiles called her and told her what Gerard did to Scott. What her _grandfather_ did to her _boyfriend_.

"Scott," she said, looking down at his stomach where the blood-spotted bandages had been. Stiles had been on his way to the airport and had demanded she keep an eye on Scott for him. "I'm so sorry-"

"Don't be," Scott said, reaching over and squeezing her hand in his. "It's not your fault. You had nothing to do with it and didn't even know about it until Stiles told you about it."

"I still feel responsible," she said quietly. "I mean - I was able to save Isaac but I can't save you?"

"Hey," Scott said with a reassuring smile. "I'm alive, and I'm okay." He leaned over to kiss her cheek. "You save me every day."

Allison slowly nodded. Scott glanced up at the clock, then quickly pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed her an e-mail from Stiles - with a translation of the beastiary page from Agent Romanoff.

“…a friend?” she asked, bewildered.

Scott shrugged, just as confused as she was.

She was about to say more, but the bell rang just as Mr. Harris stood up.

Tuning out his ridiculous speech about human stupidity, Allison turned in her seat to see Lydia already preparing her chemistry notes...and Erica and Isaac smiling coyly at her from their own table just two rows away.

And then Allison heard that they weren't going to have the same partners for the day - that they would be rotating.

Damnit.

At Mr. Harris' orders for half the class to get up, Scott smiled at her with his puppy-positive grin, and gave her hand one more reassuring squeeze before joining the other standing students to be reassigned a starting desk.

Even without werewolf powers, she sensed Scott's discomfort as he sat next to Erica. Of course, it was unfortunately easy to figure out the source of the discomfort, too.

At least there was some silver lining.

Not many girls got the validation of watching their boyfriends get irritated by the hottest girl in the school trying to feel them up. For all that he was a teenage boy, Scott was a romantic at heart. He couldn't seem to get into anything without some semblance of a relationship involved.

Even his favorite porn was sappy and romantic.

Allison smiled when the bell dinged and Erica wasn't remotely successful in duping Scott to her aide. That smile dropped when, instead of going to another seat, Erica moved back to take the stool next to Allison.

Of course.

Flipping her hair over her shoulder, the werewolf ignored Allison as she started filling out the worksheet.

Allison tried to focus. This step was all math, figuring out the formulas for the next step. Except Erica was not just ignoring her, but pointedly ignoring her.

Finally, Allison couldn't stand it any more. Setting down her pen, she turned in her seat to face the werewolf.

"What are you going to do to her?" she asked, tilting her head towards Lydia.

"Don't you think the better question is," Erica drawled, looking at Allison sidelong. "What's she going to do to us?"

Allison glared, turning to look at Lydia, just to check...

It wasn't likely that Isaac would do anything to her while they were actually in the lab, in school, in public. Allison couldn't help worrying, anyway.

Lydia saw Allison, glanced at Erica, and rolled her eyes.

Allison smiled. As far as Lydia knew, Erica annoyed Allison due to something Scott-related, nothing more sinister.

If only.

"I have to say," Erica said, and Allison turned back to see Erica smirking at the back of Scott's head. "You guys are cute together."

Allison snorted, shaking her head. "You think you can hurt me by sliding your hand up his thigh?" she challenged, maintaining her calm as best as possible. An emotional Hunter was a dead Hunter.

"Oh, I don't know," Erica said, turning on her stool to face Allison. "The thing about jealousy is that it's never really rational."

"The fact that you think this is about being jealous is why I'm not," Allison said. "I don't need a boyfriend to validate me. I'm better with Scott, but I'm still worth something without him."

The 'unlike you' hung unspoken between them.

Disappointingly, Erica didn't fall for it. Instead, she grinned, the wolf showing in every inch of her smile as her hand dropped to-

"Would you rather it was your thigh?" she said, trailing her fingers up from Allison's knee towards her skirt just like Scott did. Allison froze, staring at Erica with shocked-wide eyes and fighting hard not to look down. "C'mon, girlfight in the lab? It'll be hot."

Allison sneered, latching onto Erica's wrist. She twisted it back, just like Aunt Kate once showed her. She said, low and serene, "You wouldn't be able to handle me."

"Oh, I would love to find out," Erica challenged, wincing in Allison's grip but never dropping her smile. "Think your boyfriend would enjoy the show?"

"You mean the one where I beat you into the ground with your fancy new shoes?" Allison asked with mock-serenity. Then, mimicking Erica's tone, she said, "Oh, I would love to find out."

From the desk in front of them, Scott snorted, and Allison grinned.

Erica rolled her eyes, and twisted her hand right out of Allison's grip. "So you like it rough, then?"

"Not from you," Allison drawled, still copying Erica's cadence.

Slowly, Erica smiled again, and Allison tried to analyze her words to figure out what kind of opening she just gave Erica.

Before she could hear it, though, the seat-rotation bell rang again.

Erica grinned, and with her new, lupine reflexes, she reached out and squeezed Allison's thigh again - this time with her fingers ending in claws.

"Oh, but I would really love to get rough with you," she said, and was out of her seat before Allison could rebuke.

She was still staring incredulously when Scott took the seat next to her.

"You know I won't ever actually leave you, right?" he told her.

Allison swallowed, then put on a smirk, blatantly looking over her shoulder in Erica's general direction, though not quite at her. Not yet.

"You didn't leave me even after you had Lydia throwing herself at you on a full moon," she said, matter-of-fact and casual. "Of course I know you won't leave me just for Erica."

Just. Erica frowned, clearly irritated.

Scott smiled in relief, glancing at Harris and leaning over to kiss her cheek as soon as the teacher turned away. "I'm sorry about that, by the way. I don't think I ever actually apologized."

"I forgive you," Allison promised. "I forgave you for that ages ago."

Smiling, he said, "God, I love you."

"I love you too," Allison said with a smile, then pointed at the beaker in front of him. “Switch phones with me? I’ll try and figure out a few more things.”

“Sure,” Scott said, glancing up at Mr. Harris, before palming over his phone and taking hers. “Need me to do anything on yours?”

“Just…look up stuff from the assignment,” Allison said. “My parents won’t think twice about that, they know I’m not great at this stuff.”

“You’re just fine at this stuff,” Scott insisted.

Allison laughed at his affectionate lie.

Scott turned his attention to their work, and Allison turned to look at Erica head on.

 _'What now, bitch?'_ she mouthed across the room. Erica...rolled her eyes. Huh.

Allison kept her face blank as she turned her own attention back to the chemistry assignment.

A few minutes later, the seat-change bell rang, and Scott pressed one more soft kiss to her cheek as he got up to go sit next to Lydia.

She smiled at him, only for her smile to fall when Isaac sat down next to her.

For a few minutes, they worked in silence. Allison mixed the tinctures while Isaac wrote down the measurements.

"If you guys hurt Lydia," Allison said conversationally. "I will bring my entire Hunter's clan down on you so hard your Alpha will feel it."

Isaac didn't look up from the worksheet. "Don't get pissy with us because we're doing your job for you," he said, far more haughty than he had any right to be. "You know, protecting the innocents and all that."

"Lydia _is_ innocent," Allison said.

Isaac snorted. "She's been killing people all over town. And even if she hasn't, it wasn't like she was a good person to begin with."

"...excuse you?!" Allison hissed, actually setting down her pipette to glare.

Now, _now_ he looked up.

"I asked her out once, in freshman year," Isaac said, finally turning his head to look at her. "She said no, and told me to come back when the bike I rode to school had an engine, and not a chain."

Allison stared.

Isaac smirked.

"Lydia's cold-blooded," he said, as if it had any relation to his previous sentence. "With or without the kanima."

Allison clenched her fists, and wondered how much trouble she would get in if she stabbed him in the balls here and now. She could do it. It would be so easy-

"So really, one way or another," Isaac continued. "We're doing the whole town a favor by killing her."

"Don't even try it," she practically growled. "You don't care about protecting anyone. You were just a pathetic little asshole, and now you're mad that the Bite didn't make you any better and you're taking it out on her."

"She's killing people!" Isaac hissed back, dropping the smarmy act to glare at her. "Isn't it supposed to be your job to stop monsters from killing people? Or do you only kill werewolves, screw whether or not they've hurt anyone, and screw everyone else?"

"You aren't innocent, and it has nothing to do with being a werewolf, and everything to do with being a misogynist," Allison snapped. She kept her voice low and tried to mirror her mother's calm but terrifying tone she used to cow her dad's business rivals.

She probably used to intimidate werewolves, too.

Isaac didn't look intimidated - but he did look confused. "What?"

"You're just like every other guy who thinks that if they like a girl, they're entitled to her," Allison snapped in an undertone. A few classmates were eying her and Isaac warily, seeing their faces but not hearing their conversation. "As if we're all so desperate for a boyfriend that we should be grateful for the barest hint of male attention and drop our panties for the first dick that gets interested in us."

From behind Isaac, one row over, Scott grinned, proud and amused in equal measures.

Disturbingly enough, though, at the desk behind Scott, Erica also looked reluctantly impressed. Allison ignored her.

"Well I have news for you," she continued, crossing her arms and ignoring their chemistry work completely. "Lydia doesn't owe you a damn thing just because you liked her. There are plenty of psychopaths in the world who kill women who reject them. Don't use the kanima to justify acting just like them."

Isaac's jaw clenched as he turned back to their chemistry work. After a moment, Allison did the same, making a note on the sheet that was supposed to stay with the table instead of the person.

"It doesn't matter what I think," Isaac said finally. "If Lydia kills someone after you could've stopped her, it's as much on you as it is on her."

Allison froze, pencil standing on the paper mid-word and mind reeling with déjà vu.

Her parents said almost exactly the same thing.

Swallowing, finished her section of the worksheet, her hands shaking so much that the handwriting was barely legible.

Mom and Dad told her a lot of things - and taught her a lot of things.

And long before that, Aunt Kate had taught her plenty, too.

Looking back, so much of her bonding activities with her aunt were now obviously training in disguise. All their hiking, rock climbing, sparring, gymnastics, archery, shooting...

But some things were less obvious.

In retrospect, the amount her aunt taught her to manipulate people was slightly disturbing. She always disguised it as advice on how to make friends, how to flirt, how to do business - but so much of it was coming in handy with Hunting, Allison couldn't believe it was a coincidence.

The bell to change seats dinged, Isaac smirked. Somewhere on memory lane, Allison snapped.

"Regardless of whether or not she's the kanima," Allison said, voice as icy as possible as she shut her notebook. "You don't get to use 'protecting people' as justification. The only reason you want to kill her is because deep down, you are just as much of an abusive, entitled, and psychopathic asshole as your father was."

Isaac paled, and behind him, Erica's gaze turned from reluctantly impressed to bluntly murderous, while Scott's eyes widened in shock.

"I'm not..." Isaac protested.

"No?" she asked sweetly. "I'm sure that's what your dad told himself, too."

He looked like he was about to cry as he stumbled to the next desk in his rotation. Erica bared her teeth at Allison in fury as she took her seat next to Isaac, the rage melting away as she turned to the boy and started murmuring low in his ear.

Whatever Erica was saying, Isaac either didn't hear her or didn't believe her.

Thankfully, the universe wasn’t _completely_ turned against Allison, right now. Caitlyn wasn’t Allison’s friend by any means, but she never cared much for gossip or about how Allison’s aunt was, either.

Even better, the girl took one look at Allison’s paper and said, “How about you let me answer you just copy off of me?”

Allison looked down. “That bad?” she asked, hoping her expression conveyed that she wasn’t insulted, just resigned.

Caitlyn smiled. “Just pour out the secondary solution when I say so, let me take care of the rest.”

With Caitlyn apparently not trusting Allison with the mathematical leg work, Allison pulled out Scott’s phone and texted Stiles, _I talked to Jackson, asked him where he was at certain days and times. He said he's been having migraines. \o/_

It took two tries to type in the stupid smiley at the end that would let Stiles know that even if it was coming from Scott’s phone number, it was actually her texting him.

 _Allison said the same thing,_ he responded, which meant he meant Scott. Huh, how had Scott known? Stiles answered without her even asking. _Eavesdropped a bit by the locker-room, apparently he mentioned migraines to Coach once, so I guess it's true._ And then another moment later, _Damnit. Would've been easy if it were just him._

Of course things couldn’t just be that simple.

 _In chem class now,_ she responded. _Harris has us rotating partners for today’s project. Both the blonde assholes were already seated with me._

They had a codename to refer to Derek and the pack, but just describing ‘which’ asshole they were talking about proved to be a lot easier.

 _Did either of them say anything to you?_ Stiles asked.

“Pour in half,” Caitlyn directed, barely even looking up from her paper.

Allison complied, then texted back, _Just that they think it's Lydia._

She pocketed the phone and quickly copied Caitlyn’s equations and answers. Just as she finished, Mr. Harris rang the bell. Caitlyn wished Allison luck - and politely didn’t admit she’d need it - as she moved up a seat.

The JAFROTC kid sat down next to her. Since this step was basically just waiting on the solution, Kyle asked if he could copy her answers since she’d just copied off of Caitlyn. Allison let him, and after seeing Mr. Harris talking another kid through an answer, she pulled out the phone again, and chuckled at Stiles’ response.

_I'll turn them into fur coats if they hurt her._

Allison grinned, and wrote back, _Well, her birthday IS coming up, soon._ Stiles sent back a bunch of laughing emojis.

 _We can make it a joint birthday present,_ he said. Allison had to cover her mouth lest she laugh too hard. Kyle raised an amused eyebrow, but otherwise didn’t comment as he focused on copying as many answers as he could.

 _She deserves something nice,_ Allison wrote.

It was a little regretful, so she wasn’t surprised when Stiles said back, _Especially since this is our fault._

Allison swallowed, turning the page so they could keep chatting without the other werewolves overhearing them.

_You really think so?_

_I know so._


	4. (10) Scott and the Hale Pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warnings:** Abusive moment between former intimate partners (Jackson's interrogation of Lydia about the tape).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place during [Chapter 10](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6482827/chapters/29443026) of Talking Cure.

Scott flinched a little when he saw Derek out of the window, but Jackson noticed anyway.

When the other boy asked, "What?", Scott flipped his notes to a blank piece of paper and wrote, _Derek is outside._

Now Jackson's face looked like he smelled something gross – which was ironic, since he didn't have a werewolf's sense of smell. Oh, if only Scott could un-smell-

"Why?" Jackson demanded.

Swallowing, Scott wrote, _They think Lydia is the killer._

Jackson's eyes blew wide open. "What- why?"

 _Because you're not, because you weren't immune to the kanima venom,_ Scott wrote. Then he frowned.

"Why'd they test you, anyway?" Scott asked in confusion.

Jackson's skin paled, giving him an almost sickly look as he clenched his fist over the calculator. "That's none of your business," he said. Pointing at what Scott just wrote, he added, "What are you going to do about it?"

Scott paused, looking out the window, towards where he'd caught a glimpse of Derek, then back at the two blond betas in the room.

Where was Boyd?

 _Will talk with Allison,_ Scott said.

And they did. After class, Scott told Jackson, "Stay with Lydia", then quickly headed to the boys' locker room, using that entrance to Finstock's office.

A few moments later, Allison came in through the hallway entrance.

"Derek's waiting for Lydia outside the school," Scott reported.

"So we've got to figure out a way to protect her," Allison concluded.

"He's not going to do anything here, not at school-"

"What about after school?"

With a frustrated sigh, Allison leaned back against Coach's desk, dropping her head into her hands.

"I can talk to Derek," Scott offered. "Maybe convince him to give us a chance to prove that it's not her."

Allison looked up incredulously.

"...I know," Scott said. "Look, I've got to try - if only to buy us some time after school. You can take Lydia to my house, we'll keep her safe there. And Jackson will help."

Allison nodded.

"If anything else happens," Scott continued. "Let me handle it."

Allison narrowed her eyes. "What does that mean?"

"You can't heal like I do," Scott pointed out. "I don't want you getting...hurt..."

He trailed off as Allison turned towards her bag without a word. She rifled through it and pulled out-

Scott's eyebrows shot up in surprise at the collapsible crossbow she snapped open and held up. She pointed it right him, like she'd done with the long-bow in her garage less than three months ago.

"I can protect myself."

After school, Scott Allison herd Lydia out a reclusive side-door that few in the school actually used, while Jackson went out the front door like normal. As they went, Scott went in the opposite direction, through the hallways. He made sure to give a really big smile to Isaac and Erica. It caught their attention, making them falter and follow him with their gaze as he stopped by his locker like normal – then headed out to the practice field instead of the parking lot.

Towards where he saw Derek.

To look for Derek.

Instead, he found Boyd.

"Where's Derek?" Scott yelled across the pitch as he approached. "I need to talk to him!"

"You can talk to me," Boyd said, his grin as smarmy as Erica's and Isaac's.

Scott almost wanted to throttle Derek just for his alone.

"I don't wanna fight you," Scott said.

"Good," Boyd countered, walking up to meet him. "Because I'm twice your size."

Scott couldn't help but laugh a little.

 _Cocky big buys are easy to beat,_ Nat once told him. _They don't know how to deal with someone who's fast or agile._

Granted, at the time she'd been telling Scott not to take his size over Allison for granted.

But it worked the other way around, too.

He stepped forward on one foot as if he were going to keep walking in a straight line, but then spun backwards on his next step, sweeping his entire body downwards and his leg outward to kick Boyd in the back of his heel.

When the bigger boy started to fall forward, Scott wrapped his arms around Boyd's knees, lifting himself and Boyd up in one fluid move before throwing Boyd down to the side, tossing the guy several yards behind him.

He stood upright, then jerked back at the face that was right in front of his own.

"It's Lydia and you know it," Derek said.

Boyd scrambled up and rushed at him again.

Scott crouched like he actully planned to try to take Boyd head on, but stepped to the side at the last moment. Boyd tried to stop and turn in the same motion, and Scott took advantage of that to twist Boyd's arm and around and up his back. He bent his own knee to get his shoulder under Boyd's, then twisted, the motion lifting Boyd up, over his body, and down the other side.

Big guys also have momentum, Nat warned him.

Boyd groaned, but also growled, skyrocketing his entire body upward in one smooth motion, his shoulder jamming right into Scott's stomach.

He wasn't sure if it was his imagination or if his gut was actually still tender from where Gerard stabbed him a week ago.

Either way, he gasped in pain, both the actual impact knocking all the air out of him and from his entire midsection seeming to compress under the impact and from the memory of the last time someone had targeted him there a week ago.

Landing on the ground kept the air knocked out of him for another moment. He groaned, even so much as breathing in seeming to make his stomach worse. His eyes were clenched shut, but he managed to squint to look up at the alpha.

Derek wasn't bothered by Scott's pain in the slightest. "I don't know why you think you need to protect everyone, Scott."

"Someone has to," Scott ground out, getting his elbows under his shoulder and pushing himself up. "I'm not going to let you kill her."

"She's already killed other people," Derek said. "Every night, she turns into a homicidal lizard, and the next time she kills someone, it could be one of us."

"It's not her!"

"She was Bitten by an alpha," Derek said. "It must've changed her, but it triggered something else. It happens very rarely, and it happens for a reason."

"What reason?" Scott demanded, sitting upright.

Derek sighed, pursing his lips before answering. "Sometimes the shape you take reflects the person you are inside."

To Scott's surprise, though, Derek extended a hand and reached down to him. Wary, Scott still accepted it, letting Derek pull him up to his feet.

"What if she's immune to the Bite?" Scott asked.

"No one's immune!" Derek cried out. "I've never seen it, or heard of it. It's not-" Derek faltered, but finished, "It's never happened."

That falter caught Scott's attention - and he remembered the betas kidnapping and testing Jackson.

And that the boy had never explained why they would bother testing him in the first place.

"What about Jackson?" he demanded.

Derek didn't answer.

"You gave him what he wanted, didn't you?" Scott cried out.

Beside them, Boyd looked confused.

"Scott," Derek started.

"Peter said the Bite either turns you, or it kills you!" Scott cried out.

Derek blew out a sharp breath through his nose, glancing away in frustration. Why would Derek just give Jackson the Bite like that out of nowhere? Why would he risk a werewolf like Jackson-

-unless that hadn't been what he was aiming for?

"Y-You were probably hoping that he would die," Scott said, praying Derek denied it.

He didn't.

Now, Boyd looked disturbed, glancing between Scott and Derek.

"You were hoping he would die," Scott reiterated, and god he wanted to interrogate Derek about this alone. But he had little time, and bigger problems. "But nothing happened..." Looking at Derek's face, he added, "And you have no idea why, do you?"

Derek didn't seem to notice the way Boyd was looking at him, now. His jaw clenched and his hazel eyes hardened as he pursed his lips again and admitted, "No."

Scott swallowed, and forced himself to move on.

"I have a theory," he said. "That Lydia's immune and somehow she passed it on to Jackson. You know I'm right-"

"No!"

"You cannot do this-

"And I can't let her live!" Derek shouted, his fists clenching at his sides.

Behind him, Boyd took a step back away from both of them.

Scott stood his ground, forcing down every memory of Dad yelling at Mom.

"You should've known this," Derek continued.

With a sigh, Scott said, "I was hoping I could convince you."

He snapped back on his heel and jolted away from them both, shooting back towards the doors to the school - the ones from which Erica and Isaac were storming out of in frustration.

Scott smirked as he shot past them.

After being briefly sidetracked by Coach for a weird conversation about Danny's equipment - or at least he hoped it was about Danny's equipment - and Matt snapping a picture of him, he grabbed his backpack, unlocked his bike, and pedaled home as fast as possible.

He reached his home, locked the bike in the garage, and walked up to his room just in time to hear Jackson ask for, "A moment in private."

The way he was looking at Lydia made it clear who he meant.

"No sex on my bed!" Scott said, as he ushered Allison out. Jackson glared, Lydia rolled her eyes, and Allison giggled as they closed the door behind them.

However, she took one look at Scott's face, and her own expression fell.

"No luck?"

"None," Scott said. He paused, then said, "Derek Bit Jackson, too…" Looking at his closed door, he said, "Since they lived, both of them should be turning – but neither of them are. And he has no idea why."

"But…" Allison frowned. "There's only one kanima, right?"

"I sure hope so," Scott said, shuddering at the thought of _two_ of those things. Allison gripped his hand tightly in her own. "Even if it were one of them, what about the other one? And that's assuming it _is_ one of them. For all we know, it's neither of them – and it would make more sense. Whatever makes them immune, it would make the most sense if it was both of them."

Allison nodded. She glanced at the door, then back at Scott.

"…what _are_ they talking about?" she asked. Scott grimaced, not eager to eavesdrop – but at the sharp look from Allison, he tuned in, anyway.

 _"…You took the tape? The recording?"_ he heard Jackson asked.

 _"What tape?"_ Lydia asked, voice wet and choked up.

 _"From the night of the full moon! You came into my room and you saw what was happening to me so you took the tape and edited out the most important part!"_ Jackson said, practically snarled. _"I don't know why,"_ he continued.

"Jackson recorded himself on the night of the full moon," Scott said. "But his tape was edited, and he thinks Lydia did it."

" _Maybe you wanted to take that from me,_ my _moment,"_ Jackson said, stepping omniously around Lydia and voice lowering. Like Dad used to do to Mom when he was mad. _"Like you take everything…"_

Lydia sniffled, and Scott realized-

"She's crying," he murmured. Allison got a murderous look in her eye, like she was one step away from barging in and whisking Lydia away from Jackson.

"… _or maybe you just thought you were protecting me,"_ Jackson continued. _"But it was you, wasn't it?"_

Scott blinked. "Or…he thinks she might've been trying to protect him?"

 _"I don't know what you're talking about, but if you need it so badly...fine,"_ she said, and yes, she'd definitely been crying. _"Here's your stupid key."_

"It wasn't her," Scott added, listening to some clinking metal. "And she's giving him back a key…normal house key, sounds like."

_"I hate you."_

"…and she hates him," Scott said, and then tore his gaze away, as well as his hearing.

He didn't want to hear any more of this. He shouldn't have heard any of it in the first place.

Allison looked at the door, hand twitching like she was about to open it.

Scott opened his mouth to tell her they should leave the ex-couple alone – when he heard the familiar sound of Derek's Camaro pull up towards the house.

"Shit," Scott cursed, rushing past Allison and down the stairs.

She followed him, and as she saw him heading to the side of the door, she went to the other side. Both of them pulled back the sheer curtains – and then cursed – in unison.

Derek and all three betas were getting out of his car.

Scott's mind raced, trying to figure out what to do. Outside, Derek shut his door, and turned to the house. Spying Scott there, he shot Scott a sharp, predatory snarl.

"They're here to kill Lydia," Allison asked, and Scott turned to see tears trailing down her face. "Aren't they?"

Scott just nodded. Allison pulled out her phone, and his eyes widened when he saw her pull up the contact for her mom.

"Allison!"

"I'm not-!" She swallowed, shutting her eyes and clutching the phone to her chest, before looking at him. "Do you have any idea what we're going to do?"

"No," Scott said. "But I do know that your mom sent your dad out with a Hunting party looking for her even before more bodies started dropping," Scott reminded her. "Now? If they know that Jackson was Bitten, too, or think she was the kanima? They might kill them."

With a deep, shuddering breath, Allison nodded, pocketing the phone.

"She's still with Jackson, right?" she asked. She jerked her head back, trying to indicate the room without using words that the other werewolves could overhear.

"Yeah," Scott said, tuning his attention in again. "They're…" He scrunched his face. "Making out?"

Allison laughed, a sound that sounded painfully close to a sob.

"That doesn't actually surprise me," she said, lips curling like she was trying to keep more tears from rushing forth. "They have _so many_ issues."

Scott rolled his eyes. "Well, at least if Lydia's focused on Jackson, we can go out and talk to them…" She frowned as she looked back out the window. "Where's Isaac?"

Looking out, Scott scowled as he realized that while Derek was leaning back against his car, and Erica and Boyd were approaching, Isaac was nowhere to be found.

And there was scrabbling at one of the back windows – the ones he and Mom often didn't bother to lock, because it wasn't like robberies were exactly common around here.

Allison saw where he was directing in his gaze. "Go!" she hissed.

He got to the living room just as Isaac vaulted in, knocking over a table and the decorative bowl on it in the process.

On the bright side, the bowl was Plexiglass or something, and didn't break.

On the not so bright side, it was filled with pretty pebbles that were now scattered all over the floor. Isaac slipped on them, but so did Scott.

Still, Scott was at least expecting it.

He also heard more scrabbling from kitchen side widow – and Lydia coming out into the upstairs hallway and ask, "What's happening?!"

"Someone's trying to break in!" Allison yelled.

At the same time, Scott yelled, "Kitchen!" while he moved forward, making sure to keep his feet close to the ground as he slid forward.

Isaac didn't think to do that, and if the situation weren't so terrifying, watching him slip on the glassy pebbles would be comical.

But the situation _was_ that terrifying, so Scott grabbed him by the shoulder and slammed the blond head against his knee, knocking him out almost right away.

And he blinked in surprise when that actually worked. Then frowned. This was a little _too_ easy.

Or so he thought. He heard all three girls upstairs, Lydia in the bathroom crying as she called the cops, and Erica giving Allison some creepy monologue about power and stealing boyfriends.

He got up there just in time to see Erica grab the crossbow bolt Allison shot at her with a smug smirk, and Scott got ready to intervene. Allison's expression seemed oddly victorious, though.

Erica looked down at the bolt in alarm, and Scott could see it glistening with something – and Erica's grip on it loosening as she fell to the ground, eyes wide and body not moving.

Allison knelt down by her, leaning in and saying lowly, "I thought you were psychic. Bitch."

Scott tried not to let the alarm show on his face – what had Erica said to her before he started listening in? – but he instead reported, "Lydia's calling the police."

With a sharp, unsurprised nod, Allison stood up again.

"I believe we have two of Derek's things," she said sweetly. "Let's go give them back."

Scott carried Erica's paralyzed form down the stairs, then slung her over one shoulder as he picked up Isaac's unconscious form and headed outside, throwing them both out onto the lawn. A quick glance around revealed that thankfully, no one was looking out their windows, right now.

Thank god for a neighborhood full of introverts.

Boyd scrambled to their side, checking their pulses – still not used to just listening for them – and turning them both over. Derek narrowed his eyes at them, then back up at Scott – and Allison beside him.

"Huh," he said. "Maybe you're not just an omega, after all." With a smirk, he added, "Impressive, especially given a third of your pack is currently across the country."

…how did he know where Stiles was?

Before Scott could actually ask that, though, they all heard a sharp, loud hissing sound from above. The other werewolves both looked up, toward the roof, in alarm. Scott frowned, and he and Allison stepped down to the lawn to look up, too.

The kanima was there.

Even in the dark, with the streetlights' energy-saving bulbs still warming up, there was no mistaking the tailed, scaled, and quadrupedal creature lurking on top of Scott's house.

And wearing clothes, like it had just shifted.

 _Familiar_ clothes.

He turned back to see Derek and Boyd's gaze zero in towards the middle of the house – where they could all hear Lydia rattling off the McCalls address to the police.

"Who the hell…" Derek demanded, looking up at the lizard on the roof.

Boyd's jaw and fist clenched, but looking around them, he said, "We need to get out of here – the cops are on their way."

Derek blew out a sharp breath through his nose, but nodded, picking up Erica and practically cradling her as he headed back to his car, Boyd slinging Isaac's unconscious body over his shoulder and following.

When Scott looked back up, the kanima was gone.

As the Camaro tore out of the street, Allison grabbed Scott's arm and dragged him back inside.

There, Lydia was standing at the top of the stairs, still clutching the phone to her ear and tears streaming down her face.

"Did you get a good look at them?" she asked.

Scott opened his mouth, but Allison answered, "No. Just two blonds, a guy and a girl. They fought us and we couldn't see their faces."

Lydia nodded, repeating that to the dispatcher as Scott headed towards a noise in the living room.

He and Allison got there just as a wave of scales seemed to melt away from the side of Jackson's unconscious face.

Or mostly unconscious, anyway.

Jackson was still groaning when Lydia appeared at the doorway behind Scott and Allison. "What happened?" he demanded. He glanced at Lydia, then looked almost pointedly at Scott. "Well?"

Scott and Allison shared a look, their surprise and their own confusion equal to each other's, and to his.

"…one of the robbers, I guess, came in here," Scott said. "You must've come in to try and help and slipped on the pebbles and hit your head."

"We couldn't get a good look at who they were," Allison said pointedly. "We just saw that it was a guy and a girl, both blond, but couldn't get a good look at their faces."

Scott looked at Lydia. "You said the cops are on their way?" She nodded. Scott remembered the Camaro pulling in from the eastward direction, and leaving the same way. He pointed out the street and _west_ ward, saying, "They ran that way."

With another nod, Lydia said, "I'll go outside, wait for the cops."

As she trotted out, telling the dispatcher that they ran and the direction they ran in, Scott and Allison turned back to Jackson.

Once Lydia was out of earshot, Jackson carefully stood up, toeing aside the pebbles. "Why, exactly, aren't we telling the cops who it was?" Jackson demanded. "If they're locked up-"

"-then that means dragging police attention to _us_ as well as them," Allison said. "The last thing we need is even _more_ police attention. Either the cops will get hurt, or they'll intervene and make our jobs harder."

"And anyway, we don't want to risk even one werewolf still being in jail by the next full moon," Scott added, shuddering as he remembered how close they came to Isaac shifting in a jail cell on the full moon. "Let alone four, three of which don't have self-control, yet."

Jackson grimaced.

"They're going to come after Lydia again," he said.

"No," Allison said. "The kanima showed up – while they could hear Lydia talking on the phone. They know it's not her."

Jackson stared. "Then who is it?"

Scott and Allison looked at each other. She didn't seem to have a better idea of what to say than he did.

"Never mind!" Jackson snapped, pushing past them and heading out the door.

As he walked towards the front door, Scott saw him tug and untuck his shirt, seemingly without even realizing it.

Just before the shirt tails dropped down, he saw a large tear near the inseam of his pants.

A tear big enough for a tail.


	5. (10) Danny - First Miguel, Now a Lizard?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place the morning after the end of Ch. 10 of Talking Cure.

Danny had spent over an hour barely able to move, he ended up in the hospital, and when he finally recovered by morning, it was to Scott asking him about Jackson.

And of course, the icing on the shit cake of Danny's day:

"Did the cops have to take my fake ID?" he whined, staring down at the empty slot in his wallet.

He didn't expect anything of it when he told Scott. The other boy was just there to ask about the video Danny had been restoring for Jackson. When Danny bemoaned the latest addition to his crappy day, he hadn't expected anything from Scott.

So it threw him for a loop when Scott said, "What if I told you I could get your fake ID back?"

Danny frowned at his wallet, not looking up at Scott.

But not because he was actually considering the offer — just considering all the weirdness that's been going around, and was likely to start wrapping around him if he helped Scott.

Things have already been weird ever since he helped Stiles.

Part of Danny wanted to tell Scott no. Just go back to his daily — and nightly — life and not worry about whatever the hell was going on at his school and in this town.

The rest of him wanted answers.

In the mild chill of the hospital room, Danny looked speculatively at Scott. He glanced between the boy and his wallet as he weighed the cost of Jackson finding out he said anything...against the cost of a new ID.

"...he's sleeping," Danny finally said, voice quiet in latent shame. No one liked being the tattle-tale.

Scott frowned. "What?"

"It's just a video of him sleeping," Danny said, folding the wallet and putting it in his back pocket. "He moves and twists around on the bed a lot, and that's about it. Video just cuts out eventually, close to morning."

Scott frowned at the bed, like what Danny said made no sense. Fair enough — it didn't make much sense to Danny, either, except...well. He only had to tell Scott what was on the video — he didn't need to add his own opinion on what might have really been happening or what it meant.

"But," Danny continued. "A couple hours of the video is missing."

"Missing?"

"Part of it was deleted."

Scott sucked in a breath, and bracing himself against the bed railing, he seemed to sink deep into thought.

"I hope that helped," Danny added.

"I think it will," Scott said absently. He shook his head and tapped his hands against the foot-rail of the hospital bed one more time.

Danny narrowed his eyes.

"You don't look surprised," he said. Scott blinked, shaken out of his deep thoughts, and Danny continued. "To hear that part of it is missing."

"Jackson already said as much," Scott admitted. "I was hoping you might...know more."

"...do you know what happened, last night?" Danny asked. "Or at least who it was that drugged us all?"

"No," Scott admitted, looking away. Was that because he was lying, or he just didn't want to admit it was the truth? "It's all just...weird."

Danny snorted. "You're telling me." Scott looked at him in askance, and Danny elaborated, "One serial killer shows up in town, dies, and then immediately another one takes her place?" He shook his head. "Something else is going on, something big." He sighed. "On the bright side, it made getting my parents to pay for more MMA sessions easier. Though now they'll probably think it was wasted or something since I still ended up in the hospital."

"I thought you were already some kind of black belt champion or something?" Scott asked.

Danny rolled his eyes. "That's karate, not mixed martial arts. Besides, I don't do tournaments — I'm not interested."

Scott frowned. "Then why do it at all?"

This time, Danny smirked. "You notice how no one ever gives me crap about being gay?"

Scott slowly nodded.

"Only half of that is because of Jackson," Danny said. "The other half is all me. That's what most of those fights we got into with everyone else in middle school were about."

Scott smiled, slightly. "Well, at least you're safe from the serial killers, then."

"As long as they don't have drugs," Danny said dryly. Then he looked around the hospital room, and sighed. "You really don't know what happened?"

Scott swallowed again, and this definitely meant he was lying earlier. "We're still trying to figure things out."

"Who's 'we'?" Danny asked.

The look Scott gave the bed spread was surprisingly forlorn, especially coming from a guy Danny hadn't seen frown since the third grade.

"I'm not even sure, anymore," Scott said softly, looking away.

Then, he gave Danny one of the most forced smiles he'd ever seen in his life.

And he was friends with Jackson and Lydia, so that was really saying something.

"Thank you, by the way," Scott said with utmost sincerity. "For telling me about the video. You may have just saved a life."

Danny stared, confused.

He wanted to ask what that meant, but Scott was already gone from the room.

For a few minutes, he stared out the door incredulously.

What the hell was going on? He rubbed at the back of his neck, before wincing at the cuts still there from the...whatever it was that happened last night. Someone on drugs, definitely. And getting it into the air somehow, from the looks of it, given the number of people hallucinating a giant lizard on the dance floor.

Maybe someone had a weird costume or something, though that just begged a lot of its own questions, too.

"First 'Miguel', now this," Danny muttered to himself, shaking his head. With a forlorn sigh, he finished getting dressed and checking his phone.

He only had like 10% left on it, damnit. This would have to be a quick call, then, since the encrypted communications took up so much battery.

At least it actually was a call, and not leaving a message.

The phone only rang twice, before _th3op3nsky3_ picked up, answering, "Hey, Cubie, what's up?"

Danny sighed, listening to a cheep door bell in the background of wherever she was. "Hey, Skye. I...did something stupid."

"How stupid are we talking?" she asked. There was another beep of a cheap door-bell, followed by the sound of a lot of cars. She must be at a gas-station.

"Um, you know that fake ID you got me? I kinda used it to get into a bar."

"...okay," she said, in measured tones. He heard the sound of an old van door sliding open. "How did they check the IDs? Did they use a credential-"

"No, no, it's not that, it's just a bouncer with a black light," he said, listening to the sound of a lot of plastic crinkling against metal. Was she seriously living off of gas-station food? Whatever, that wasn't important. "But, um, there was some kinda mass drugging incident or something? I don't know, but the end result is that I got hospitalized-"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, but the cops took my fake," he said. "We're gonna have to burn it."

She sighed, and there was a fleshy plop that Danny was pretty sure was a facepalm. "All right. I'm in the middle of nowhere, right now, but once I get settled in tonight, we'll take care of it."

Danny sighed. "I won't be as stupid with the next one."

"That's because you're gonna get two of them, one for us and one for you to use to sneak into bars," she said, with a laugh. Danny winced, but nodded despite the fact she couldn't see it. Technically, that's what he _should've_ done the first time.

"Will do," he said. "And I'm really sorry."

"At least it was only lost over this, and not something more serious," she said. Danny listened to her start the van. "Did you at least have fun before...whatever went down?"

Danny sighed. "No."

"Well, you live and you learn," she said.

"Yeah," he said. "Do you remember who that crime junkie is? There's some weird shit going down in my town and I might need some help investigating.

"Not off the top of my head, but I remember some of his posts, I'll send you the name later," she said. "I gotta go, I'll call you tonight."

He bid her a distracted farewell and hung up, quickly exiting all the encryption before it drained his battery completely.

Danny didn't know what the hell has been going on with Jackson, lately, but after something like this, he was going to find out.

To do that, he was probably going to have to violate his court order.

Again.


	6. (10) Jackson - Prisoner Transport Van

Jackson shivered in the cold metal box he was trapped in. They didn't even give him a shirt. It was already bad enough that they'd apparently seen him naked, since he didn't have boxers on and these were definitely not his sweatpants. But if they were going to trap him in a metal box in the cold outdoors, the least the bastards could do was give him a shirt.

He focused on that. On the cold, on the clothes, on the faint precursors to hunger he could feel building in his gut.

He focused on them so hard, he could almost, almost, forget that he was trapped here by three crazy people who wanted to do who-knew-what with him. They wanted him for something, and Jackson wasn't so sure about his own chances against them. McCall was a werewolf faster and stronger than a human like Jackson could hope to be, Allison came from a family of professional killers, and Stilinski was capable of setting a living thing on fire, and watching it burn without flinching.

Wrapping his arms around himself, he frowned as he heard their voices - quiet, getting louder...but only their voices. There was no sound of them actually moving closer to the van.

“ _...so, somebody just watches Jackson make a video of himself turning into the kanima, and then just erases part of it so he wouldn’t know?”_

Jackson frowned at the silvery wall he was facing. How was he even hearing this? Stilinski and McCall and Allison had walked off, he heard them.

“ _Who would do that?”_

He would like to know, too-

“ _Somebody who wanted to protect him?”_

-except he wasn’t this kanima thing and right now he had bigger problems. Like getting kidnapped.

“… _said it only goes after murderers. What if that’s actually true?”_

But the fact that McCall could casually chat about murderers explained what exactly their priorities were.

And as much as Jackson hated to admit it, he wasn’t even sure he could blame them. If he had their weird savior complexes, he’d probably kidnap someone to track down a murderer, too.

Except Jackson wasn’t the murderer and he didn’t know who was, so this whole damn thing was still messed up.

He did, however, snort to himself when Stilinski said,  _“I don’t know about you, but I haven’t murdered anyone, lately.”_

"What about Peter?" Jackson grumbled.

Outside, McCall gasped.

_"What?"_ Allison demanded.

For a few moments, nothing. Maybe facial expressions?

_"Jackson can hear us,"_ McCall said, then raised his voice.  _"And he just mentioned a good point — what about Peter?"_

_"I didn't murder him!"_ Stilinski snapped, while suddenly he sounded like he was stomping closer and closer.

_"He helped, that makes him an accessory to murder,"_ Jackson said into the empty air of the prisoner transport van, as two more sets of footsteps followed the first one.

_"Jackson says you'd be an accessory to murder since you helped,"_ McCall said, just as the doors swung open again. Stilinski stood there, one hand on each door as he leaned his weight inward while he glared at Jackson.

"So did you," Stilinski snapped, as McCall and Allison appeared behind him. "What does that make you?"

"One, not a kanima!" Jackson snapped. "And two, I didn't even do anything, I just brought that Molotov cocktail-"

"Which would be felony arson," Stilinski countered, letting go of the doors to cross his arms. "Besides, Derek was defending himself when he killed Peter."

"Oh, please," Jackson sneered. "Derek needed to kill Peter to be an alpha. If that's not malice aforethought, I don't know what is."

"It wasn't premeditated," Stilinski snapped. "We all just wanted to get out of there alive, not kill someone. It's not any of our faults that Kate and Peter were complete psychopaths who didn't make that possible without killing them, first."

"So that makes it second-degree, not first," Jackson argued with a sneer. "Still murder. Capital murder, if you count the alpha-boost as a personal gain as a direct result of the homicide-"

"You and me were accessories to involuntary manslaughter at most," Stiles practically sneered.

“Uh, guys?” McCall tried to intervene.

"'Involuntary', my ass!" Jackson cut him off with. "Derek knew what he was doing when he ripped out Peter's throat, and it's not like you didn't realize what setting the guy on fire would do to his chances of surviving the fight." He started counting off on his fingers. "Willful and deliberate action, intended consequence was death, and-"

"It was justifiable homicide!" Stilinski cried out.

“Guys…?” McCall tried again.

"Hale — was incapacitated already, that automatically negates self-defense," Jackson said. "Derek stalked up to the guy and literally ripped his throat out. That's practically the definition of 'intentional infliction of serious bodily harm'-"

"Peter was an  _alpha werewolf_ ," Stilinski said, drawing out the words like Jackson was the idiot, here. "He could heal!"

"But not fast enough to kill them before safe exit from the vicinity," Jackson said, jerking on the chains for emphasis. "Derek didn't need to kill him at that point, but he did. It was second-degree murder, which makes you an accessory-"

" _Guys!_ " McCall cut in. Allison looked between Jackson and Stilinski, bewildered. Apparently, she'd never heard an argument between a cop's kid and a lawyer's kid, before. "I hate to say this, but neither of your dads' jobs apply, here. I don't think a supernatural creature is going to be deciding who to kill based on California penal codes."

"Then how does it choose? And how does it decide if someone is a murderer?" Allison asked. "Is someone still a murderer if they only killed to defend themselves, or save someone else's life? What if someone only caused a death, but didn't actually kill?"

"See, this is why the justice system is based on codes and laws that are thought out and written down," Stilinski said. "Not just whatever fairytale sounds the prettiest when it's read outloud."

"There are so many things wrong with this system," McCall muttered.

"You don't need to tell me," Jackson growled. "I'm not the killer, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but Stilinski and Allison have a point. We have 'justifiable homicide' for a reason. Whoever is the killer probably doesn't care about human law."

"Look," McCall said, pushing his indignant friend to the side to crawl up into the van and sit across from Jackson, just out of reach. "I know you don't remember-"

"I don't remember because I didn't do it!" Jackson shouted. McCall winced, and Jackson continued. "I'm not a killer. I don't even  _know_ those people who were killed. Besides, I already told Stilinski, I was at home for all the murders. I've been getting migraines."

"That's awfully convenient," Stilinski said.

"Spoken like someone who's never had a migraine," Jackson grumbled. "I'm not a killer, but that might not last if you don't let me out right now."

McCall shook his head apologetically. "I'm sorry, but we can't let you kill anyone else."

"I'm NOT. THE.  _KILLER!_ "

McCall actually flinched back, Jackson's yell echoing in the van.

"...I'm sorry," Scott repeated quietly.

"What would you even do if I were the killer, huh?" Jackson challenged. "Keep me here forever?"

"No," Allison said regretfully, shuffling her feet and ducking her head.

"We'd just kill you," Stilinski said.

"Stiles!" McCall cried out, but Stilinski didn't flinch.

"What?" Stilinski said, ignoring Jackson’s stare to challenge Scott. "We have to stop him from killing everyone else, and we can't actually hold him prisoner forever."

“He risked his life for us!” McCall snapped, and he sounded — angry? “Against Peter! Remember that?”

…why was McCall defending Jackson? McCall hated him.

“Yes, but we just found out he got the Bite from Derek right after," Stilinski said. "It’s funny, how he got exactly what he wanted after he supposedly risked his life for us.”

Well, at least that explained some of why Stilinski could be so casual about killing him.

"I didn't help you just to get the Bite," Jackson cut in. "I helped because you were going after the guy who attacked Lydia."

"Oh, so you're willing to help kill for her, but you won't support her when she's traumatized by it?" Stiles challenged. "Or is it just that you're only willing to help her as long as it makes you look good?"

Jackson scowled again.

"Look, he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Scott started, and Jackson snorted at that. Did any of them know what the hell they were doing?

“So what?” Stilinski challenged.

“So...I didn’t either!”

Jackson glared down at his shaking hands.

Stupid hands and stupid everything else. He couldn’t even turn into a werewolf or just die or something  _useful_ -

“Remember that time I tried to kill you and Jackson?” Scott said, addressing Allison.

She bit her lip, and nodded. "I think it's still the only time I've ever seen you angry."

Scott nodded. “I had somebody to stop me.” Pointing at Jackson, he said, “He has nobody!”

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

Still, Jackson scowled. "I'm right  _here_ !" He hated how thick his voice was — it must've been obvious that he was talking around a lump in his throat.

He wasn’t this stupid, he wasn’t this emotional, and he wasn’t this dependent.

"We'll try everything we can," Scott said, addressing Jackson directly. "We want to save as many people as possible, but that means keeping you here so you don't kill anyone else."

"I won't be killing anyone," Jackson said, drawing out the word as clearly as possible. "Because I'm not the killer!"

All three of them sighed, and Jackson's scowl deepened.

"I'm sorry," Scott repeated again, and slipped out the back of the van with an ease that Jackson envied.

Allison closed the doors with regret clear in her eyes, and Jackson shut his eyes and slumped forward as soon as the doors locked.

_"I was listening to his heartbeat,"_ Scott said outside, three sets of footsteps meandering away.  _"He believed what he was saying."_

_"Or he knows how to control his heartbeat,"_ Stiles said.  _"It's not that difficult. There's a reason why detectives don't use polygraphs that much."_

_"I think he's telling the truth,"_ Allison said.  _"It's just that it doesn't mean much. If Jackson doesn't know anything, then someone is using him, and we're back to square one._

_"I still say we just kill him,"_ Stilinski said.  _"And make sure the world is safe from him permanently."_

_"We can't just kill him because it's convenient!"_ Scott snapped.  _"We have to try to save him. No one else is going to help him, and if we can save him, we have to do it."_

_"Scott,"_ Stilinski started.

_"No!"_ Scott said.  _"We just — he doesn't have anyone else."_

Jackson inhaled, deep and shaky and desperate.

He wasn’t a child and he wasn’t going to cry, he was better than that-

“ _That’s his own damn fault,”_ Stilinski said.

He shuddered and leaned back against the wall as a disobedient tear slid down his cheek.

On this, Stilinski was right.

Jackson had people in his corner. He knew that. He knew that his parents had stayed in his corner, and they hadn’t expected that much in return. Good grades, good at sports, and good behavior. Apart from the occasional speeding ticket, Jackson either managed it all or faked it well enough. And that helped him be enough for Lydia, who only needed him to be enough to keep up with her. Out of everyone in the school, Jackson was easily her best option.

Until Scott and Stilinski, anyway. The rising new lacrosse player and the only other person as smart as her. But they were two people, and Jackson was nearly able to take all of that and put it in his one, lonesome self. He could’ve been the perfect son, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect everything.

Instead, his parents had no idea what to do with him, he dumped Lydia, and now he was even ignoring Danny.

But still…killing Jackson? Because they thought he might be a serial killer?

God, Jackson hoped it was bluster.

Jackson didn’t know about his chances against Scott or Allison, but he could take on Stilinski no problem, and Stilinski was the only one who actively wanted him dead.

But Jackson really did not want to be on the lacrosse team with a psychopath.

It had to be bluster — Stilinski was too much his father’s son to be able to kill someone in cold blood.

(He hoped. It wasn’t like he could ever forget seeing the boy light the alpha on fire. But the monstrous werewolf had been about to kill them all…and Jackson had kind of helped...)

“ _How long can we keep him here?”_ Allison finally asked.

“ _This particular spot, not for long,”_ Stilinski said. _“But as long as we keep moving around…a while, if we need to.”_

That was ominous.

How long could they really keep him? More importantly, how long would they?

“ _Let’s try to avoid that,”_ Scott said. _“We don’t know if the police can track the van, somehow-”_

“ _I disabled the tracking chip!”_ Stilinski said, indignant.

“ _-or who might see it and tell them,”_ Scott continued.

“ _Who’s there to tell?”_ Allison said. Her voice sounded thick, like she was trying not to cry, but her tone was pragmatic. All the sentiment of a teenage girl and all the practicality of a Hunter. _“I don’t think those crows are going to tell the police about us.”_

“ _Actually, those are ravens,”_ Stilinski corrected.

Jackson couldn’t help but laugh, wet and harsh. Kidnapping, murderers, and serial killers aside, Stilinski was still an easily-distracted nerd and somehow, that just made everything even worse.

They weren’t crazy people pretending to be sane by day, like Derek. They weren’t sane people forcing themselves to be something they’re not, like Jackson or Lydia. They were just themselves, and ‘themselves’ meant moral and do-gooding people who could actually do good. They were genuinely kind and would do anything to protect people, and maybe even save Jackson if they could.

Jackson couldn’t even dream of being someone like them.

Of course, being moral might also mean killing Jackson. Stilinski already wanted to kill him, and if Allison was anything like the rest of her family, she would know how to actually do it.

With another shaky breath, he shifted his weight and thumped his head back against the wall. They still hadn’t decided what to do with him, and that meant he couldn’t plan for how to get away.

He shivered, and knew it had nothing to do with the actual chill of the prisoner van.

His hands stung.

His hands stung, and-

No.

His skin simmered blue in the corner of his eye. Feeling his veins freeze in horror, Jackson lowered his gaze to his hands.

To the scales on his hands.

…no…

This was a trick. They drugged him, or maybe he was just losing his mind, like some demented Stockholm Syndrome. He shook his head like he could get rid of his sudden dizziness like that-

-nonononono-

This was not happening, he was bitten by a werewolf, not a lizard, there was no way this was possible.

There couldn't be.

Jackson wasn't a killer.

He wasn't.


	7. (10/11) Scott - Sparring in the Woods

Scott was starting to lose his breath to Allison's choke-hold on him for another reason entirely than the violence when Stiles yelled, "Time!"

She released him, and they fell onto the grass, still somewhat wrapped around each other, literally and metaphorically.

At least until they heard Stiles ask, "Why do I get the uncomfortable feeling I just filmed their foreplay?"

Scott and Allison both turned, seeing him looking into the camera of the phone he'd used to record their sparring match.

"Stiles!" Scott and Allison yelped in indignant unison.

Stiles snorted as he lowered the phone, tapping away as he sent it to Nat.

With a sigh, Scott disentangled himself from Allison, then reached down to help her up. He checked her over in case he hurt her, then kissed her.

She grinned when kissing back.

Stiles gagged and said, "Really?"

They broke apart and looked over at him, standing between the jeep and the prison van.

"Really," Allison said, and Scott laughed.

Rolling his eyes, Stiles tapped at the phone one last time and said, "Sent it to Nat."

"Let me see it?" Allison asked, holding out her own phone while asking for his. They exchanged phones, Stiles getting familiar with Allison's for their current plan.

Scott grabbed the small towel in the jeep, wet it with some water from the water bottle, and started wiping himself down-

-and paused when he heard a sharp hitch in Stiles' breath.

"What?" he asked, looking over.

Stiles swallowed, glanced up at Allison, then down at Scott.

"I'm reading her dad's update on where he and his men are," Stiles said. "And Scott - they were at the Jungle before we even left. They...how did they know to go there?"

Scott frowned, an expression which deepened when he realized why Stiles was keeping his voice down - Allison was still engrossed in the sparring video, but she was standing only a few yards away from them.

"If it were her, would she have handed you her phone and password?" Scott asked.

Stiles slowly shook his head. "But we do need to figure out what they're doing, how they knew to get there so fast."

"I'll ask," Scott promised, and Stiles sighed, starting to type again. "Wait, you're not supposed to send the texts until you're at the library-"

"I'm not," Stiles promised. "I'm drafting them so I can just cut and paste them in. Makes the fake conversation between our phones go a lot faster and smoother."

Scott nodded, finishing wiping off the worst of the sweat and pulling on his hoodie again.

Just in time for Allison to swear profusely at Stiles' phone.

"What?" both boys asked.

"Is there any way we can - 'unsend' the video?" Allison demanded, looking up with nervous eyes. "Or take it back?"

"No," Stiles asked. "Why?"

"Because Scott is completely healed in it," Allison said.

"Yeah," Scott answered. "We were only sparring-"

"But I split your lip his morning!" Allison said. "And now it's fine! Humans don't heal that fast."

Scott winced. "...maybe she won't notice?"

"Really?" Stiles drawled, holding out his hand for his own phone. Allison gave it back. "She's a spy, Scott, it's literally her job to notice these things."

"Yeah, when she's on the job," Scott said. "But we're not - I doubt she cares that much about us. She's just being nice, right? If she's not looking for it, and she doesn't have any reason to look for weird inconsistencies in general..."

Stiles sighed. "I'm not nearly as optimistic - but I already sent it. We can't undo that. We can't really do anything about it except pray."

Allison snorted, holding her hand out to Scott for the towel.

"How's Jackson?" she asked, jerking her head to the prison van.

"Still asleep," Scott answered. He looked at Stiles. "You sure you're going to be okay?"

"I'm just going to the library," Stiles answered, pocketing his own phone and Allison's. "Relax, I'll make sure the fake conversation between our phones doesn't last too long. I'll be back quick."

Scott watched Stiles drive away until he couldn’t hear the jeep anymore. Then he leaned back against the side of Allison’s car, brushing his hip against hers.

“He better take care of my phone,” Allison grumbled.

Scott chewed on his lip, still a little sore where Allison had split it that morning when they recorded a sparring match to send to Nat.

“He says that as soon as the GPS puts him at the library, his phone and yours are going to have a long and completely unhelpful conversation about Lydia,” Scott said. “He’ll be building your alibi with your family while he looks for more information on the kanima.”

Allison nodded, still nervous but trying not to show it.

He was nervous, too.

And not in the good way, either. He was still running Stiles’ update over in his head, how the Hunters hadn’t just gone to the Jungle after the fact, but how they actually seemed to have been there at the same time as themselves. Scott and Stiles missed it at the time, but Stiles figured out from some security cameras that they showed up just before the cops had.

“Allison…” He trailed off. How do you ask your girlfriend if she’s betraying you? “Your dad…how did he know to be there at the Jungle so fast? And your grandfather?”

She just looked at him. But she wasn’t confused or hurt or angry.

Just…resigned.

Somehow, that hurt most.

“I didn’t tell him,” she said quietly, looking down at her boots. “I never said anything. They have…a lot of guys working for them.” Her lips twisted into the most depressing attempt at a smile Scott had ever seen in his life. “I’ll be in our basement handling crossbows while surrounded by laptops monitoring cameras all over town. It’s ridiculous.”

She shivered, and Scott wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer to his side. He was debating on offering her the hoodie he was wearing when she murmured, “I didn’t betray you. I swear.”

“I believe you,” Scott said, and he did. He didn’t even need her heartbeat to believe it, though the fact it didn’t tic with a lie was reassuring. “I just…”

“We’re scared,” she said, leaning in to tuck her head under his. Scott pressed his lips to her temple and nodded.

“But we’ll make it,” he said. “We’ve made it this far, we won’t back down now. We’ll fix this, all of this. We’ll save Jackson, get rid of the kanima, and find a way to end the war between your family and Derek’s pack once and for all.”

Allison laughed once. Or sobbed. Or maybe both.

“I wish I had your optimism,” she said, pressing her face into his neck, like she was hiding from the woods and the evening chill.

Scott tightened his arms around her, like he could protect her. He wished he could, but some of the worst monsters he knew lived in her house.

“We have to try,” he said. “Because if we don’t…then what’s the point of all this? Of any of this? If we try, we might lose, but if we don’t try, we will lose.” He pressed another kiss to the top of her head. “I want us to work. I don’t know how, yet, but…”

“I do, too,” she said. Then took a deep breath. “And I’m not even sure if we should wait until we’re done with high school.”

“Yeah, but your family might kill me if we try,” Scott pointed out. He winced as he remembered Chris putting a gun to his head. “I kind of like my insides on the inside.”

Allison laughed.

“I’ll protect you,” she said, bringing up one hand to tug on a belt loop. “Promise. I might as well put all that training to good use.”

“…how’s that going, anyway?” Scott said. “What does Hunter training mean, anyway?”

“Apparently, it’s been going on my whole life without me noticing,” she said in a grieving voice. “The archery is obvious, but it’s not the only thing. Gymnastics was to keep me in shape and make sure I can move as needed in the field. Learning about all the guns and weapons wasn’t just so I can help out with the family business, it was to use them. Evasive driving is now all-terrain driving, I’m learning how to use maps and plotting and…all sorts of stuff.”

Scott smiled. “Well, look on the bright side - if being a Hunter doesn’t work out, you’re already like the perfect SHIELD cadet.”

Allison laughed. “What, like you?”

With a shrug, Scott said, “Dunno. I mean, they deal with lots of lab experiments, their own and criminals, and those mean a lot of animal subjects, so I guess they always need more vets? But I have to go to college for that.” With a sigh, he added, “If I even make it into college.”

“You’ll do fine,” Allison said, cuddling into his side in reassurance.

“My grades _suck_ ,” Scott said.

“But it’s just this semester, right?” Allison said. “I mean, college applications usually have a spot where you can explain personal emergencies and stuff, right? You got involved in the plot of a serial killer, that’s a good reason for your grades to dip for a semester.” With a bitter smile, she added, “You’re not like me, barely ever passing even _after_ getting held back a grade.”

“At least you can still get into a good college with your family’s money,” Scott said.

“Yeah, if we’re all still alive and they haven’t disowned me by then,” Allison muttered. With a sigh, she buried her face into Scott’s shoulder. “If _we’re_ still alive.”

And what could Scott say to that? It’s not like she was wrong - with the way things were going, it would be a miracle if they even survived graduating high school, let alone going to college.

But he had hope.

“Well, Nat says she never went to college,” he said with a grin, and Allison laughed. “And like most of their really badass agents - the ones in the ‘Operations’ Academy? - didn’t really get there on their education either.” He leaned back a little to look her head on. “You’d look _so hot_ in SHIELD uniform.”

Allison burst out laughing, which Scott counted as a victory.

Unfortunately, her good humor didn’t last for very long.

“My whole life, I learned all sorts of self-defense moves and did martial arts in half the towns we moved to,” she murmured. “I sparred all the time with my family, especially my aunt. They always said it was just in case anyone ever targeted me because my dad sold weapons, but…”

“It’s not,” Scott said, and Allison nodded.

“It used to be fun,” she said. “I mean, even back then, the reason sucked, but…I liked spending time with my mom and my dad and my Aunt Kate that way. But now…”

Scott thought for a minute, looking around himself.

“…wanna spar again?”

Allison actually pulled her head back to blink at him in surprise.

“What?”

Scott gave her a small, encouraging smile, and actually pulled away a little to tug her towards the open space between the car and the van.

“Maybe it can be fun again,” Scott said, holding his fists up like in the movies. “Rematch?”

Allison smiled, fond and slightly exasperated but stepping forward all the same.

Abruptly, she struck out at Scott’s right. He blocked it, only to end up flying off his feet and landing on his back when her ankle came out of nowhere to strike him in one of his.

He looked up at her balefully. “You didn’t warn me!” he pouted.

“There are no warnings in battle,” she said calmly. She sounded like she was reciting something.

Despite the creepy quote, she held out her hand and pulled him up. Scott let go, then snatched at her side, tickling her as he ducked her shaky punch. He grinned as she laughed while kicking at him from the side, making him bounce away several steps.

They took up matching fighting stances - the one with your body tilted and your fists up. But hers looked…tighter. More controlled.

Scott was working off of YouTube videos and the stuff Nat sent him or showed him how to do. He never actually had a teacher.

He managed to block her double-punch and a kick aimed at his side, and even managed to brush her shoulder with a punch of his own. But then she did something with her ankle and his knee and he was kneeling. He tried to protect his chest only for her to whirl around him and kick his shoulder, sending him sprawling on his stomach.

Face in the dirt, Scott growled and grinned.

“Oh, it’s on, now,” he said delightedly, twisting onto his back. He scrambled up as she took up a fight stance again, small smile and cute blush on her face.

“If you say so,” she said, and struck out again.

Even with werewolf speed and reflexes, Scott was only barely not-losing, and he was on the defensive against her and he knew it. How much of this was her recent training, and how much of this was from a life of practice?

He didn’t know, he didn’t care, and he didn’t think it mattered. All he knew was that he was working hard to keep her from throwing him to the ground again.

And, well, she didn’t throw him to the ground again. She ducked under him somehow, and grabbed his wrist and launched her body up, and flipped Scott over her head holy crap-

He groaned when he landed on the ground again, and tried to kick out at her ankles. She dodged them, nimbly leaping over him and sitting on him instead, straddling his hips and using her weight to pin down his wrists.

His vision cleared and he blinked up at her, just a little bit stunned.

Okay, a lot stunned.

“I win,” she said, smug smile making his heart flutter. Thank god she couldn't hear it.

“…I don’t exactly feel like I’m losing,” Scott admitted, looking down to where she was sitting on his hips.

And something a little more important.

Her eyebrows rose as she looked down to where their bodies were joined, feeling him.

“Wow,” she said, sounding a little stunned and a lot pleased, herself. “You…really like sparring.”

Scott grinned up at her. “Yeah, I, um…”

She didn’t make him finish that sentence, instead giving him an appraising look before leaning down and pressing her lips to his.

Oh, well.

This wasn’t like any sparring Scott had ever seen, but he didn't complain.

(Two hours, later, though, Stiles did.

“You had one job!” he shouted as Scott and Allison scrambled to get dressed, voice echoing in the now-empty expanse of the prisoner van that Jackson - or rather, the kanima, if the claw marks were anything to go by - escaped from. “ONE. JOB!”)


	8. (10/11) Lydia - Mystery Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia still doesn't get her mystery boy's name. But she gets a real conversation, a flower, and an e-mail from her idol. Life is good. Who needs friends, anyway?

Half an hour after translating a page of Archaic Latin for Allison, and ten minutes away from home, Lydia brought her car to a screeching halt when she saw the boy walking on the sidewalk.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to chase him down. He looked up, smiling when she made a show of unlocking the door and waving to the passenger side.

The mystery boy whose name she still didn’t know — didn’t remember? — climbed into her car with a relieved sigh.

“Hey, stranger,” she said, saying the faux-title with the most playful voice she could muster. It’s been way too long for her to admit she didn’t know his name. How best to get him to tell her, without making it obvious that she’d forgotten it? “Going my way?”

Hell, she hadn’t just forgotten his name — she’d forgotten when the hell he told her in the first place. But he must’ve at some point…

…right?

“I could be,” he said with a smile. “Do you always give rides to strangers?”

“Only cute ones,” she answered, starting back on the route towards her neighborhood. “Though we can’t be that strange to each other, we go to the same school.”

He laughed. "So where are you headed, anyway?"

"No where interesting, I'm afraid," she said. "Just home."

"Any plans?"

She sighed as theatrically as she could as she took a rounded turn. "A quiet night in, researching things."

"What are you researching?"

She didn't even know his name, and already he'd showed almost twice as much attention to her as Allison did.

"Either mitochrondrial regeneration in duplicated radiation environments, or kanimas."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him staring at her.

"I don't know what those are," he admitted after a few moments. At least he was honest — and didn't seem to feel the need to cover up that admission of ignorance, either.

She grinned.

"Most people don't know the first one."

"...so what's the second one, then?" he asked, sounding wary as she took a sharp turn.

"No idea," she said with false cheer. "But since my best friend is looking into them, I might as well figure out what they are." Gripping the steering wheel, she added, "Maybe then, we can actually talk."

For a moment, there was silence.

_Great going, Martin,_ she cursed herself. _Unloading this much of your personal crap onto a near-stranger._

"Doesn't sound like much of a best friend," the boy said, picking through his words. "If you guys don't talk."

Lydia sighed, easing to a stop at the last red light before home. "She's going through a lot, right now."

"And you aren't?" he asked, the quiet question ringing in the space of her car.

She didn't answer, instead taking her turn when the light turned green, driving on toward her neighborhood.

"Where do you live?" she asked.

"If you could just drop me off at the corner, that would be great," he said, smiling with genuine gratitude. "Thanks for the ride."

"Thanks for the company," she said, pulling up to the corner he pointed to it.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the car door without ceremony, his feet hitting the asphalt without making a sound. Before he actually climbed out, though, he looked over his shoulder at her.

"I don't know what a kanima is, and the only thing I know about a mitochondria is that it's the powerhouse of the cell," he began, a smile unfurling at her laugh. "But I'm still happy to talk."

"Thank you," she said. She paused, then smirked and added, "A mitochondrion is a powerhouse for the cell like the digestive system is a powerhouse for _us_." At his bewilderment, she clarified, "Its job is to process nutrients into energy for the cell."

The boy grinned outright. "You'll have to tell me about it, soon."

"Looking forward to it," she said. "See you at school!"

She expected him to just leave after that. Indeed, he did clamber out of her car. However, instead of closing the door, he walked over to the hedge on the border of someone's yard, plucked something off of it, and returned to her, leaning over the passenger seat.

"Thanks for the ride," he said, handing her a small, violet-colored flower, though Lydia was pretty sure it wasn't actually a violet. She didn't know much about flowers at all, and clearly this was a serious deficiency she'd need to correct soon.

But that would be dealt with later. For now, she took the flower, and tucked it behind her ear along with her hair.

"You're welcome," she reiterated. "Though I don't know if this counts as a good gift when you just stole it from someone else."

The boy laughed. "Well, next time we see each other, I'll give you something better." Was it her imagination, or was that a twinkle in his eye? Who was she kidding, of course this wasn't in her head — he was _absolutely_ flirting with her. "Just bring that back so I can..." He looked over his shoulder at the hedge, shrugged, then looked back at her. "Return it."

She rolled her eyes, but her smile didn't fade. "Like I said, I'll see you at school."

Her smile didn’t fade even as this time, he closed the door and walked away, as she drove home, and as she pulled into her garage.

The smile only faded when she realized she still didn't have his name — let alone any other way to reach out to him. Maybe she could ask him for a phone number? She could create a new contact for him and ask him to spell his name for her, and pray his name wasn't easy to spell. Well, they lived in the suburbs. Enough people spelled their kids' names 'uniquely' that it wouldn't be too awkward to check, right?

With a plan in hand, her smile returned.

That smile grew into a grin when she checked her e-mail before bed. Waiting for her was a new e-mail from Dr. B. Banner, with the subject line, "γ both is and isn't a constant".

If she cried a little when she opened it up to see a picture of the equation from her letter to him, with corrections and commentary underneath it — well, she was all alone, right now, so no one had to know.

She didn't need Allison, anyway, or Jackson, or anybody else from school or their secrets. She had two total strangers who cared about her more than they did, she had National Merit scores from her PSAT with an AP Schedule, and she had a fantastic birthday party all planned out and ready to go.

She was Lydia Martin, and she was doing just _fine_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started these AUs I never expected either of them to grow, let alone to combine them. Some days even I'm confused about the order the scenes and chapters are in - and I'm the author! It must be even worse for you guys. So, I started **[Phase 1](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13390242)** \- a chronological posting of the entire series (Frost Bite, Talking Cure, Trust the Instinct, and the relevant Snowflakes).


	9. (11) Erica - Alternative Investigation

“Look, I’m sorry I don’t have anything more specific,” Boyd said to Erica, Isaac, and Derek, as he collected his homework off of the old railway car’s seats and packed up his backpack . “I’m just saying what I overheard.”

“It’s all right,” Derek said. Erica couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. Judging by the look on Boyd’s face, though, it wasn’t likely. “Every bit helps.”

Whatever reservations Derek had about Boyd’s latest intelligence on the 'McCall pack’, Derek still tossed Boyd the keys to his Camaro, so Boyd could get to work on time.

A full hug for her, a manly half-hug with Isaac, and an even manlier nod to Derek later, and Boyd was out of the train station and off to his shift at the ice rink.

Once they heard the last vestiges of the car’s engine fade away in the distance, Erica and Isaac turned back to Derek.

“Stiles’ dad works at the police station,” Erica offered. “It doesn’t seem that weird that he and Scott would spend half a night there.”

“Except Boyd overheard them talking about the interrogation room,” Isaac said. “How the chairs were uncomfortable — it sounded like they were stuck there.”

Derek nodded along. “Something must’ve happened — serious enough that even Stiles’ dad couldn’t cover it up or get them out of it.” From her seat, Erica could feel the vibrations of Derek’s feet almost pounding the floor in his frustration as he stood up. “We need to find out what it was.”

The alpha started walking away. Erica and Isaac glanced at each other, before also getting out of their seats.

"So…why do we need their help?" Isaac asked, voice echoing down the old train car as they followed Derek down the aisle between the seats.

"Because it's harder to kill than I thought," Derek said, turning and walking out the door, into the station ruins. "And I still don't know who it is."

Erica moved through the old subway car with caution — partially because she liked these shoes, and mostly because she was learning how to listen to people's bodies. She could hear Derek and Isaac's heartbeats — she just wasn't sure what those rhythms actually meant.

"And they do?" Isaac continued, following Derek out, Erica bringing up the rear.

"They might," Derek said. "Which is why I need one of you to get on their good side."

"Mmm…" Erica said, thinking over the possibilities. "Scott, or Stiles?"

Derek didn't seem all that happy that she was asking. "Either," he answered anyway.

He bent down to open up one of the crates — and Erica spared a moment to admire the view — while Isaac said, "You know the full moon's coming, Derek?"

Even he didn't sound sure if it was supposed to be a question or a statement. Erica was pretty sure none of them knew. But Derek stood back up and snarked, "I'm aware of that."

Then he popped open the lid of the crate. Erica's eyes flew wide open at the mess of chains and leather strappings inside of it. But she quickly schooled her expression into something less shocked and more nonchalant.

"These look comfortable," she said, picking some up. Derek rolled his eyes as he looked through the crate, eyes flicking between every increasingly kinky-looking item in there. Mental inventory?

"You said you were going to teach us how to change whenever we wanted," Isaac said, looking far more apprehensive as he stared down at the box.

No surprise — chains had more freedom than an icebox, but not by much.

"There hasn't been time," Derek answered.

"But if you have to lock us up," Isaac said, as Derek finished his supply check and closed the box, blocking them from Isaac's view. "Then that means you'll be alone against the Argents."

"They haven't found us," Derek said, trying to sound way more optimistic then he was.

" _Yet_ ," Isaac countered. "So how about we forget the kanima?"

"We. _Can't!_ " Derek snapped, stopping in his tracks to turn his full ire on them.

Erica narrowed her eyes at him, and wished more than ever that Boyd was here, right now. He did a lot better at parsing through Derek's moods.

"I don't know what the Argents are planning, or what Gerard knows," Derek said. "But I am sure about one thing — we have to find it first."

Jaw and fists clenched, he turned sharply on his heel and kept walking, straight for the little camp stove and cooler he kept in the corner.

Erica and Isaac watched him in silence.

Then she turned to Isaac and said, “I’ll go.”

“And I won’t?” he challenged.

She snorted, still jolting a little at how different it sounded now, compared to just a month ago.

“You take Scott,” she said. “And I’ll take Stiles.”

Isaac nodded. Without much additional thought, Erica turned on her heel and started up the stairs.

“Wait — now?” Isaac asked, incredulous. Derek didn’t seem to react at all, glaring at something on his phone.

Erica shrugged, since Derek wasn’t opposing or stopping her.

“No time like the present,” she declared, and kept going.

The Stilinski house was only about halfway across town from here.

She could use a nice jog.

~*~

In the shadowed evening, after the sunset plunged the world into darkness but before the moon lit it back up again, Erica crept between backyards, coming to a halt outside her target.

She stood just beyond the Stilinskis' small yard for a short while, waiting until the Sheriff out of that room with the window into the yard. As soon as he was gone, she slunk inward, keeping her her shiny blonde head down in the darkness. She leveraged herself on top of the little patio overhang, grinning at how easy it was with her new strength, and moved on all fours to the wall. She slowly stood up by the closed window and peeked over the ledge into Stiles' room-

Then dropped back down again, eyes wide.

Okay, she should've expected that. Jerking off without having to hide under the covers was a thing teenagers who were allowed to lock their doors could do.

She assumed, anyway.

As she got over the sheer unexpectedness of it, a slow smile started to creep over her face as she waited.

It wasn't long, thank god. She had to crane her ear to hear him past all the other ambient noise of the neighborhood; super-senses were only as useful as your own ability to concentrate on or through them. But, after an impressively long while, there was a long, low sigh, then the sound of Stiles pulling up his pants and then wandering into the bathroom. He washed his hands and threw away his tissues in there. She wondered if he'd always done that, or if he only started after his best friend became a werewolf.

She waited. She waited until Stiles went downstairs and came back up with a laundry basket, waited until Stiles started folding, waited until he seemed relaxed and sinking into his routine.

Then she reached up and knocked on the window.

Stiles' yelp, the thud of him flailing off the bed, and his sky-rocketing heartbeat all had her grinning as she stood and turned to face the window again. The boy was literally clutching his chest as he blinked at her. He took a few more deep breaths before rolling his eyes to the ceiling like he was asking it for help.

"Goddamn werewolves who can't use the front door," he grumbled, voice muffled through the closed window. She realized that after the shock of her sudden appearance, he wasn't all that surprised. Well — from the sounds of it, someone else had come crawling through his window before. Scott? Though there was that weird conversation between Derek and Stiles at the pool…

Stiles huffed as he pushed himself up off his floor, but then got a wary look on his face as he approached his window, undid the clasps, and opened it up.

"Hi, Stiles," Erica greeted, leaning inwards. "Come here often?"

"Erica," he greeted flatly, giving her a nervous, yet appraising, look. Fidgeting and narrowing his eyes at her, not letting her into his room yet, he asked, “Uh, how long were you out there?”

She didn’t answer, instead leering while pushing him back so she could actually come into his room.

“Don’t worry,” she said, making a show of considering the box of tissues sitting on his desk, and the laptop it was next to. “I won’t tell anyone what your funny sex face looks like.”

She grinned at his spluttering. "I don't have a funny sex face!" Stiles protested.

"Fine, fine, your funny O-face," Erica said, rolling her eyes. "If you're going to be semantic."

Stiles pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes as she turned on the spot, taking in his room. It looked like his brain had barfed all over the walls, with pictures, news clippings, and other print-outs pinned up everywhere. The room was covered over in shallow nerdery and what grown-ups thought leet-speak looked like. At a glance, the whole mess looked like a plan for a fantasy novel. She spotted a box for World of Warcraft, and realized how Stiles could have this up on his walls without his dad getting too suspicious.

"It's not being semantic, it's being accurate," Stiles snapped. "Also, me trying to point out you were spying on me during a very private moment-"

"That's not exactly news to me," she said, looking at him. "Besides, I was just waiting for you to finish." At his incredulous look, she added, "Would you rather I came in while you were in the middle of your 'me' time?"

Stiles glared at her, crossing his arms and standing in front of the laundry on his bed like he was defending it. “What do you want?”

Erica smiled, sitting down in Stiles' chair and tilting her head. "What happened night before last?"

Stiles narrowed his eyes at her, sitting back down on the bed. "Excuse me?"

"You got into some serious trouble with the police," she said. "Something serious enough that your dad couldn't get you out of it. What was it?"

Stiles scowled. "What makes you think it has anything to do with you guys?"

"You are at least as caught up in this mess as we are — if not more, since you seem to know who the kanima is." She crossed her arms to match Stiles, causing him to drop his hands into his lap. "So Derek sent me to figure it out. One way or another, I'm leaving here with new information."

This time, Stiles snorted, turning back to the laundry he was folding.

"How did you even get here from Derek's lair?" Stiles asked. "Is he waiting outside in his car? Because I've gotta say, a Camaro is kind of noticeable around these parts."

Erica rolled her eyes. "I ran here, dumbass."

"All the way?" Stiles asked, surprised. "But that's halfway across town!"

"Werewolf, remember?" she said, flashing her eyes for emphasis. "Besides, I used to do track, so it's not as if running a lot is completely new to me."

"Used to?"

Erica gave him a long considering look. She didn't want to get distracted…

…but maybe she could get Stiles distracted, and he'd let something slip.

She leaned back in her chair and started inspecting her nails in that faux-disinterested way all the badasses in the movies seemed to do.

Not that she'd ever admit to anyone where her inspirations came from.

"I managed to get my parents to let me join the track team in freshman year after spending most of middle school begging," she said, trying to mimic Derek's gentle storytelling voice. Minus the perpetual grumpiness, anyway. "Swimming carried too much risk of drowning if I had a seizure in a pool, and everything else had too much contact for their tastes." She tilted her head, not taking her eyes off of her nails. "And we don't have a tennis team, so running around in a circle, it was."

Clenching her hand into a fist, she still didn't look back up at Stiles, merely tilted her chin up a little. Image, manipulation — she was getting good at all that. "But after a while, they decided a daughter who was both athletic and epileptic was too much hassle. The only reason I was able to even finish the season at all was because I kept sneaking out and got some of the older girls to give me rides. But now they've all graduated, and all the girls left don't want to associate themselves with the chick who pissed herself in class because of a seizure."

She looked up to smile nastily at him, make him feel a fraction of the discomfort she had to live with on a daily basis-

"I'm so sorry."

-and found herself discomfited, instead.

Stiles looked sorry. He looked like he meant it.

"…that's nice," she said finally. Then she flipped her hair, because what the hell else was she supposed to do? "But that doesn't really help me now."

"Why did your parents think it was a hassle?"

Erica started counting off on her finger. "Balancing doctor's visits with track practices-"

"You went to the doctor's that often?"

She snorted. "No."

Stiles frowned in confusion. "Then what-"

"It wasn't the reason, it was the excuse," she said, starting her finger-count again. "So 'balancing so many obligations our time', even after I told them they didn't have to come to my meets — not they did, anyway. The cost of managing my epilepsy and my athletics, because track uniforms are just so expensive." She rolled her eyes. "And they wouldn't let me get a job to just pay for the damn things myself. And then, even this highly-supervised, easily accessible, and non-contact sport was too dangerous for 'a young lady of my condition'."

She rolled her eyes again for emphasis, but Stiles didn't seem to notice.

"They didn't come to your meets?" he asked, sounding torn up about it. It would've been adorable if it weren't so weird.

She dropped her hand into her lap, staring at him incredulously.

"That's what you take away from all that?"

Stiles continued to look heartbroken about it.

It was…kind of nice, actually. That someone else cared this much, even moreso for not being pack.

She sighed.

"They came to a few," she said. "Then my dad decided that it was 'just running in circles' and anyway, I wasn't getting medals yet, so he might as well stop taking time away from work. Then it was just my mom, which was okay." She swallowed. "Not everyone's parents showed up all the time, they had lives, but…"

Stiles fiddled with a pair of pants he hadn't folded yet. "But what?"

Erica glanced up at the ceiling, hoping for help on how to explain this.

"I'd never done any sports in my life before high school," she said finally, looking back at Stiles. "But — I was doing good. Really good. My mom came to my semi-finals and I placed fourth."

Stiles' eyes widened. "After one season?" he said, sounding incredulous but not quite disbelieving. "That's great!"

She smiled humorlessly. "Yeah. The coach said that, the team captain said that, and even someone from another team said that. But you know what the first thing my mom said about that meet, when I went to talk to her after?"

Stiles opened his mouth, then closed it, waiting for her to continue.

"She said, 'thank god nothing happened'."

Stiles frowned again, deeper this time. "What, like a seizure-"

"Yeah!" Erica snapped. "Because the only thing that mattered was whether or not I had a seizure. Because placing after only one season of training meant 'nothing' to her. Because she didn't even care about what I was doing, only that I didn't collapse while doing it!"

Stiles jerked back, and she realized she'd been leaning forward as she spoke, almost hissing at the end as all her old anger and frustration came back.

She forced herself to relax and lean back again. She isn't the one that’s supposed to be getting riled up, here. She was not the manipulat _ed_ , anymore — now, she was the manipulat _or_.

"It's bad enough when everything else reduces me to my disease," she said. "But for your own parents to do that? For my own mom to see me as her 'epileptic daughter' instead of her 'daughter with epilepsy'…it was like I didn't exist. Only my epilepsy did."

Stiles took a deep breath.

"So that's why the make-over?" he asked, gesturing at her whole body with the pants leg, which now that she thought about it looked like the Sheriff's clothing, not his own. "Your identity was your condition, but that's gone now, so your identity was a blank slate-"

Erica surged forward again, and Stiles flailed back, upsetting a stack of folded clothes.

She heard the spike in his heartbeat in time with the click of his jaws snapping closed. She didn't say a word as his own nervousness shut him up for her.

"To my parents, I'm a burden, and to everyone else, I'm a joke," she said, drawing out her words. Her fangs grew that barest hint as she spoke — not enough to affect her speech, but enough for the tips to be noticeable. "But to my pack, I'm just me. Erica. Now I get to be who I want to be, instead of what everyone else expects me to be."

She leaned back again, the arms of Stiles' chair creaking in her grip as her fangs receded.

“Think of me like…” she paused, fishing for a good analogy. “Captain America.”

For some reason, Stiles’ eyes bugged out at that.

“W-what?”

_Bingo_.

“Think about it,” she said. “Don’t you remember our history class from 5th grade? Steve Rogers was tiny, sick, asthmatic…kinda like Scott, don’t you think?”

That pissed him right off. She didn’t know why, but she was gonna run with it.

“And he went through a highly experimental, never-before-done procedure to become the man we all know him as, today,” she continued. “I mean, honestly, at least werewolf Bites have a history and background of successes to work with, when I took that risk. What did he have? The Red Skull. And he did it anyway!”

She grinned, baring her teeth like they were fangs, and said, “And then he went to war.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at her.

"Hunters, kanimas, the pain — it all sucks, but they're worth it. That's why I'm here. I'm not obeying Derek because I have to — I'm listening to him because I want to."

With a vicious smile, she tilted her head again. "And that's why I'm here, asking what it is you know that we don't."

Stiles blinked in surprised at the mood-whiplash, but then his jaw clenched.

"I'm still not saying a damn thing," Stiles said. "I didn't back down for the last alpha, I didn't back down for the hunters, and I'm sure as hell not backing down for you. And you can tell that to Derek, too."

Erica growled, her burst of anger so sudden it even startled _her_. But it startled Stiles even more, sending him reeling back towards the wall, upsetting a pile of what looked to be the Sheriff's shirts.

He backed away, but he wasn't cowering. Damn. New tactic, then.

"Still not gonna work," Stiles said. "Derek was a lot scarier when he was two steps away from kidnapping me and actively threatening to rip my throat out with his teeth."

"Did you listen to him?" she asked, letting her fangs recede as she tilted her head, waiting for an answer. She wanted to know this story.

Stiles snorted, easing forward to start righting the little piles of clothing.

"Yeah, but because he needed help, not because he scared me," Stiles said. "He'd just been shot by a wolfsbane bullet, and was on the verge of death."

"Huh." She actually leaned back in the seat and crossed one ankle over the other knee — teasing the tantalizing potential glimpse up her skirt. While Stiles' eyes skittered down for a moment, they otherwise remained fixed on her face. "You saved his life," she said, half admiration and half accusation.

Stiles slowly nodded. "Yeah. Few times. And he saved mine. And Scott — look, all I'm saying is that this chaos isn't completely new to us, okay?"

If Erica were being honest with herself, she was a little jealous of that. Even if it was only a few months, in that short time Derek had built up so much history with the other people, these other kids who weren't in the pack and weren't friendly at school and weren't…weren't…

She took a deep breath.

"So I'll have to be smarter about getting information, that's all," she said, as saccharine as she could manage.

Stiles snorted, and his eyes roved up and down her body. She was pretty sure he was trying to unsettle her, so she didn't let it, instead acting as if she didn't even notice.

"Nope," Stiles said, popping the 'p' at the end and turning his attention to…seriously? He folded his dad's underwear? "I wouldn't have said anything even if you seduced me for it. And to be honest, that's what I would figure you'd try."

"Too obvious," Erica dismissed. He was paying way too much attention to the laundry, so at least he wasn't as settled and calm as his outer appearance implied. Then again, she could've gathered as much from his heartbeat. "It doesn't work if you know what I'm doing."

"Just as well," Stiles said. "Not like I have any condoms on me."

"You should get some," Erica said, thinking back to her health classes and the sex-ed sections. Her parents almost opted her out of that, too. Like it would've stopped her. "You never know when something will happen, and when you're caught up in the moment…"

Stiles shrugged, rolling his eyes as he reached for some socks. "Yeah, sure," he muttered. "I'll just get right on that."

"If you do, get the ribbed condoms," she said, leering again as she remembered something she'd overheard some of the older track girls say, once, a long time ago. "I hear they're the best thing ever."

Stiles stared at her, eyes popping wide open with incredulity as the socks dropped from his grip.

Finally, he shook his head.

"I'm still not saying anything, no matter how hard you try to shock me or…or whatever it is you're trying to do," Stiles said.

His heartbeat confirmed his words.

"So you might as well leave," he finished.

"Really?" she asked, one last long shot. "You're going to just withhold information from us?"

"Given that Derek is more interested in killing than helping? Yes," Stiles answered, clenching some of the socks in a frustrated grip.

Time for a new tactic. Third time’s the charm, right?

"All right, then," she agreed, with the most amicable tone possible without descending into Uncanny Valley.

With a sigh to mask her own frustration, she stood and started for the door.

“What are you doing?!” Stiles hissed.

“Exactly what you want me to do,” Erica said. “Leaving.”

Stiles flailed on the bed, but by the time he even stood up, she was out the door.

She walked with heavy footsteps and made loud noises on her way down the stairs. She turned in the hallway to see a bewildered Sheriff sitting at his kitchen table again and staring at her, cup of coffee frozen halfway to his mouth.

Erica smiled, just as Stiles came barreling down the stairs.

“Hi, Sheriff!” she greeted with obnoxious cheer. “Bye, Sheriff!”

The Sheriff was still staring at her like he wasn’t sure if she was real as she sauntered out the front door.

Then, since the window curtains were closed, she waited on the front step.

_“What the hell was that about?!”_ the Sheriff demanded of his son a moment later.

Stiles sighed in frustration.

_“Just a girl from school,”_ Stiles said. _“Erica Reyes. An annoying one who wanted to know how I’ve been and for some reason couldn’t just use a phone or something.”_

She smiled to herself. Stiles knew full well she was listening in.

_“Why was she here?”_ the Sheriff asked, sounding both mad and exasperated.

_“She wanted to talk.”_

__

_  
_

_“…to talk? Really? A girl like that sneaks into your bedroom to talk?”_

__

_  
_

_“Yes! That’s why she came out the front door, to annoy me-”_

__

_  
_

_“And why does it annoy you?”_

__

_  
_

_“Because you’re asking me all these questions!”_

__

_  
_

_“Stiles, what part of ‘grounded’ do you not understand?”_

__

_  
_

_“Dad-”_

__

_  
_

_“You can’t just have a girl in your room after everything with Jackson!”_

Her eyebrow rose at that. Jackson? What went on with Jackson?

_“I didn’t invite her!”_ Stiles defended himself. _“Check my phone and computer if you want. She just showed up. I said I didn’t want to talk and she got mad so she came out the front door knowing you’d get all ‘inquisitive’ on me. She’s probably going to mock me for this tomorrow.”_

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

The Sheriff groaned in exasperation, and she heard the distinct sound of a coffee mug landing on a table. _“Go back to your room. Now. And don’t think I won’t be checking in on you.”_

The sound of Stiles stomping back up the stairs wasn’t enough to cover the sound of him grumbling, and Erica grinned.

She sauntered over to the sidewalk, stopping to turn back to the Stilinski house one more time. To no one's surprise, the Sheriff was peering out the window at her. With a big grin, she waved at him. She went down the street, taking the block at a brisk clip, then another one since people were coming home and someone else was looking out a window.

As soon as she hit a block with no one outside — or looking outside — she stepped out of her heels, tangled her fingers through the straps, then took off at a lupine run.

It was so invigorating, running now. It wasn't just the increased speed or stamina — though those were one hell of a bonus. But just being able to run free of worry, run free of being terrified of a seizure, run free of her parents' suffocating apathy…

She couldn't wait until she mastered a full shift and could run as a wolf, run for _real_.

In what felt like no time at all, she made it home, snuck across the backyard, and into her bedroom through the window. She pulled off the skirt and jacket, yanked on some sweatpants and her fluffy — bulky — houserobe, and made her way out of her room and downstairs, pausing only to dig a flash drive out of her desk.

Erica didn't actually expect anyone to be awake, right now — hence why she didn't waste time undoing her hair and make-up — but it couldn't hurt to be too careful.

"Mom?" she called out in a low voice as she descended the stairs, just in case. "Dad?"

When she got no response, she kept going, scurrying through the living room and towards the office.

She kept an ear out for her parents as she snuck into Dad’s office. It only took a few tries to get into his computer, and she plugged in the USB as she started searching through his records for everything related to Jackson Whittemore.

She turned up a lot more than she expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed the poll A/N: you guys mind if instead of posting these separately, I just start incorporating these chapters straight into Talking Cure?


	10. (11) Jackson - Dog Fight

Jackson sighed in relief when Mr. Carlyle’s classroom was empty. No need to keep his voice down or come up with some weird excuse to another student about why he was talking to Mr. Carlyle about his bio paper.

Which was great because Jackson still wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to Mr. Carlyle about it, himself. He got one of those migraines that he’d been getting since Derek Bit him, and lost most of the night that he’d set aside to work on it. It’d been a half-assed job done the next morning, and Jackson couldn’t fault his teacher for giving him a C on it.

But he’d charmed teachers into giving him extensions and second-chances before. And now, he had a restraining order against two fellow students on paper. It wouldn’t be too hard to chalk up the shitty paper to the stress of getting bullied and stalked by his classmates.

For now, though, the classroom was empty even of Mr. Carlyle himself, so he waited.

As he waited, he went over to the tanks on the side of the room. Not that the animals in there did much. Jackson was halfway convinced that the tarantula was fake, it seemed to move so little.

The snake was interesting, at least. Looked almost lonely, though. Did reptiles even get lonely? They weren’t social animals.

Still, those scales looked so smooth, he wanted to pet it.

So he did.

Or at least he thought he did — except when he blinked, the tank was closed, the snake was untouched, and Mr. Carlyle was standing in the doorway asking Jackson, “Do you still want to talk about your paper?”

Yes.

“No,” Jackson said. Wait, what? “I, uh — forgot something, and I don’t want to rush either of us. May I come after school? Won’t be long, it’ll just be longer than-” He pointed up at the clock. “Three minutes.”

“Of course,” Mr. Carlyle said, with a slow and considering nod. “Are you feeling okay, Jackson? You don’t look too great.”

Jackson smiled, a winning smile that seemed to make Mr. Carlyle flinch.

“I’ll be fine, sir,” he said, and walked back out of the classroom.

He only spared a glance back at the snake tank. The snake was unbothered and might not even know that Jackson was ever there.

He found himself oddly disappointed about that.

But, he had more important things to do, like take a shower.

He’d just taken one this morning, per his usual routine, but he didn’t feel right. A shower. That’s right, that would fix him, make him feel better.

If he could, he’d take the day off and go home and take a bath, except baths were dangerous, people can _drown_ in baths, so no, a shower, the school’s shitty showers worked just for him-

Was someone following him?

He could’ve sworn he heard someone.

But he didn’t see anyone behind him. He was all alone in the hallway.

So he shook it off, went into the locker room — his head was pounding, he just wanted to take a shower and maybe some Advil.

Thankfully, the locker room was almost empty, the only other person there being Matt, who was fully dressed. He must’ve just finished a shower of his own.

“Seeya,” Matt greeted him with, and Jackson shrugged out of his clothes as Matt finished tying his shoes, shouldered his backpack, and headed out.

Jackson rolled his eyes when he heard Matt talking to Allison just outside. Jesus, Danny was so obnoxiously right about Matt’s crush on her. Even as Allison acquiesced to going to that stupid rave with him, even from all the way over here, Jackson could tell she didn’t really care about him. How desperate _was_ Matt?

He didn’t care. He just finished stripping and stepped under the water.

Unfortunately, rather than helping, his headache only seemed to get worse.

And worse, like there was something inside his brain trying to hammer its way out through his skull.

And _worse_ , until he was going blind with the pain and had to hunch over himself, desperate for it to stop.

Jackson didn’t know what happened next.

But _something_ must have, because next thing he knew, he was on the other side of the locker room, falling over and landing on top of-

“Allison?” he asked, scrambling off of her. “What are you doing here?”

She stared at him like he was crazy, and looked him up and down.

Jackson’s eyes widened in horror as he realized he was naked.

He looked around, grabbing the nearest pair of shorts he can find.

“What just happened?” he asked. She flinched, backing away into a corner — _away_ from him. What the hell? She was the one in the boys’ locker room spying on him nude!

Before she could answer, or he could ask more questions, the door slammed open, and McCall was there.

Watching Jackson pull on his shorts as his girlfriend cowered in the corner.

“I — I'm fine,” Allison said, not sounding like it at all.

She might as well have not spoken, because that alien fury spread across Scott’s face as Jackson pulled his shorts up, his heart beating so hard Jackson was sure that even humans could hear it.

“I'm fine,” she tried again, to no avail as her boyfriend ran right towards Jackson. “Scott, I'm fine!” Jackson tried to back away, but he stood no chance against a pissed off werewolf, and Scott threw him into the lockers without breaking a sweat.

The loud clanging of metal against metal and concrete rang in his ears, in time with Allison’s screamed, “ _Scott!_ ”

Cold, dented metal dug into his back, as he pushed himself up on top of the mess of lockers, and glared at McCall.

Through the echos of the clanging metal still ringing in his ears, he ground out, “I have a restraining order!”

“Trust me,” Scott said, voice low in the way it only got when the idiot was losing control of himself, of his werewolf self. “I restrained myself.”

With a snarl, Jackson threw himself at McCall.

The other boy needed to change species entirely to be able to lift someone up. Jackson had done that — had done that, had led the lacrosse team, done _all_ of this — with nothing but human hard work.

He had to break a sweat or two, but he didn’t have a problem throwing McCall around.

No problem throwing McCall at the open equipment rack, knocking it over, the creaking metal drowning in the sound of Allison’s scream.

McCall had no problem slamming him into the wall by the sink. The a few chunks of ceramic tile cracked and crashed down to the ground, shattering and filling the air with dust as Jackson picked Scott up and threw him into the shower.

“Guys!” Allison demanded, just from the edges of the fight.

Jackson ignored her, peeling McCall off the floor and slamming him into the wall.

He expected McCall to try and utilize his new strength, and wasn’t expecting the complicated move that hit Jackson’s head against the wall beside them and left him groaning on the floor. But when Scott tried to descend on him, he brought his legs up, planting his feet on McCall’s stomach and pushing with all the might in his legs he could muster, sending McCall flying through the air and into the wall.

Jackson grinned at all the tiles he’d managed to crack. He stood up, smirking at the groaning boy on the floor, then strode out, rolling his shoulders.

“This is the boys’ locker room, by the way,” he sneered at Allison. “You don’t belong here.”

Instead of answering, she looked over Jackson’s shoulder — and up.

He turned around just in time to see McCall parkouring his way over the goddamn shower wall, launching himself off the top edge at Jackson.

With another, totally human snarl, Jackson grabbed one of the weights lying around and threw it at McCall — who caught it, because human strength still had nothing on werewolf strength. Jackson wasn’t sure anything outside of the Avengers did.

Still, it distracted McCall enough for Jackson to grab hold of his shirt. Except McCall used Jackson’s grip as leverage, dropping his weight to flip Jackson over his head and throw right out the door, out into the hallway.

Jackson’s entire back throbbed in time with his head, but he still pushed himself up with a groan, paying no attention to the mess of students he could see out of the corner of his eye clustering at the ends of the hallway.

He reached up to try and meet McCall, who was descending on him with brown eyes and fists flying. Jackson was going to pummel him, anyway, no matter what their species were.

He tried to, at least.

McCall wasn’t the only werewolf in this school, and Erica had no trouble pulling Jackson away. He fought, trying to slam his fists backward at her to get her to let him go, he needed to get to McCall. Stiles, despite being weak for a _human_ let alone a werewolf, was holding back Scott.

“Hey, what the hell is going on?” Jackson heard. He stilled as he realized a teacher was striding down the hall — that _Harris_ was coming right at them.

Stiles finally let go of McCall, who wiped a hand through his now-damp hair as he slumped against the wall opposite of Jackson — who fought hard to stay standing straight as he realized he was in nothing but his thin little shorts as a crowd gathered all around them, Harris reaching them with Matt right behind him, ever the aspiring photo-journalist who always had to stick his nose into other people’s business.

“What do you idiots think you’re doing?” Harris demanded. “Jackson, calm down!”

Jackson took a deep breath, gritting his teeth as he debated whether or not to point out that he _was_ calm, now.

“Mr. McCall, care to explain yourself?” Harris demanded, at least pinning the blame on the right person. “Stilinski?”

Jackson didn’t say anything — because he didn’t know what the hell happened, himself. He had no idea how he ended up naked on top of Allison.

(And he knew exactly how that sounded.)

At least McCall didn’t say anything, nor Stilinski, nor even Allison. Erica let Jackson go.

Matt tried to break the tension, holding out a tablet and muttering, “Uh, you dropped this-”

Harris snatched it right out of his hand in anger. He used it to point at Jackson, then McCall, saying, “You, and you…” Then he trailed off, looking around with anger building in his eyes. “Actually…” He turned, using the tablet to gesture to them in a circle. “All of you.” Even Matt, the poor bastard. “Detention. Three o’clock.”

…well, there went his chances of making up his shitty bio paper to Mr. Carlyle.


	11. (11) Lydia - Why Even Bother?

"I won't be able to study with you, today," Allison murmured to Lydia towards the end of their chemistry class.

As usual, they finished before everyone else in the class. Lydia was already working on her independent study for the AP test, but didn’t pay that much attention to it. After all, the best part of this class was supposed to be having it with Allison. It was supposed to mean that they always had some time to whisper to each other, usually finalizing plans for after school.

Or canceling them — like now.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"I got detention," Allison said, swallowing and not looking up from her worksheet.

"Ugh, did _everyone_ get detention today?" Lydia demanded.

"Sort of," Allison said. "There was a fight and Harris showed up and didn't want to hear anyone's side of the story, so he gave everyone detention."

Lydia glanced around the room. In front, she could see Stiles and Scott at another table — Scott writing, but Stiles talking. Most likely, Stiles was doing the actual mental leg work and Scott was merely writing down what he said, but who could know for sure. Somewhere behind her, she was sure Erica was perching on her stool, and at least two boys somewhere in the room would be nervously admiring her.

How Erica could change so much over one weekend was a mystery Lydia was still working on. Or, well, planning to work on — after she figured out what the hell was Jackson's problem, what Allison was hiding from her, and why Scott and Stiles were acting so weird lately.

And what was wrong with herself.

She didn't want to think about that, right now.

"What happened?" Lydia asked, trying to take her mind off her own problems. "I tried asking Stiles, but he wouldn't say anything."

"What about Jackson?" Allison countered. “What’d he say?”

With a flip of her hair, Lydia answered, "We're still not talking."

Allison nodded, distracted by her worksheet — despite the fact she was done, too. After all, it was _Lydia_ she’d copied off of.

"I was trying to talk to Jackson about something," she asked. "I went into the locker room, except he'd just gotten out of the shower. He tripped and fell, but Scott showed up and took it the wrong way. I guess Erica and Stiles heard the commotion, since they showed up right behind him."

Lydia frowned. "Tripped and fell?" she asked incredulously.

Allison didn't notice Lydia's disbelief, starting to quietly pack up her notebook, binder, and chem book. "Yeah, it was — kind of stupid. But since I was there, and I kind of started the fight — detention."

Lydia pursed her lips in thought.

After a moment, she finally asked, "Is this payback for the time I made out with Scott?"

With shocked-wide eyes, Allison turned to stare at her. "What?!" she hissed, glancing at Harris. Their teacher was helping someone else and not paying any attention to them.

"'He tripped and fell on me' is a cliche," Lydia said. "I'm not sure why you'd go after my ex-boyfriend, especially when-"

"I wasn't!" Allison cried out. Harris — and half of the rest of the class — turned to stare at them. "Sorry," Allison said sheepishly. Harris rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the pair he was helping. Everyone else looked at them warily.

Apparently, Allison and Lydia were turning into 'the crazy table'.

Whatever. They'd get over it.

Eventually.

"I wasn't," Allison repeated under her breath. "I honestly just wanted to talk to him. He's been avoiding me, and I figured if I cornered him in the locker room, he'd have no choice but to at least give me a minute."

"...oh," Lydia said.

"Lydia, please," Allison begged under her breath. "You have to believe me."

"I do," Lydia said. Before Allison could look relieved, though, she added, "Unfortunately."

Allison frowned, but before either of them could say anything, the bell rang. The class erupted into the organized chaos of everyone packing up and leaving the room as fast as they could.

Except for Allison and Lydia, despite the fact they were already packed and ready to go.

"What do you mean?" Allison asked, her voice now at a normal volume.

With half of a sigh, Lydia slid off of her stool and smoothed out her skirt. She shouldered her bag, made sure her outfit was still intact, and only then did she look up at the girl who was the closest thing to a best friend she had, right now.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Stiles trying to drag Scott out of the room. She wondered if Erica or Isaac were still around, but didn't really care.

"I came to your house when I needed to talk about something and you wouldn't give me the time of day," Lydia said. "Meanwhile, you go through the trouble of tracking down and cornering Jackson for the same reason. I believe you, Allison, when you say nothing happened between you and him and that it wasn't about me. I believe you, and that's the problem."

Before Allison could say a word, Lydia turned sharply on her new heels and walked away.

This wouldn't be the first time Lydia's lost a best friend. But god, she'd been hoping it would be the last.

She wondered why she still kept trying.

Heading straight for her locker, she smiled as she saw her mystery boy waiting for her by it.

“Hey, stranger,” she murmured, turning the combination lock with barely a glance.

“Hey,” he said, watching as she put her books away. “You busy after school?”

Not at all.

“Always,” she answered, closing her locker.

“Well, unbusy yourself,” he said. “I wanna talk to you.” He paused, as she side-eyed him and his demands. “Actually…I want to show you something.”

She huffed as she crossed her arms.

“I thought we’d gotten past the slightly rapey language,” she murmured, lowering her voice even more lest the handful of other students around get the wrong idea.

“Hmm…” she hummed, before shaking her head. The male ego dictated that they take the active, leading role in any relationship — but feminine mystique relied on not letting them have total control, on making them _work_ for that leadership. “I’ve got better things to do for today…” She curled her lips up into a coy smile. “But what do you have planned for Spring Break?”

Her mystery boy just smiled.

“How about I surprise you?” he offered.

Without giving her a chance to answer, he pushed off the lockers and started to walk away.

Then he stopped and looked back at her.

“Bring the flower,” he said with a wink, then kept walking away.

_Well_ , then.

She couldn’t help her smile as she turned and walked in the other direction — towards the library.

Without Allison to talk to, Lydia had no plans to subject herself to the cafeteria just yet.

In the library, she sat herself down in front of a computer, typing in her Student ID number and unwrapping a power bar under the table as it loaded. She stole little bites in between getting online and into her e-mail.

She had a draft of a letter to one of the world’s most famous scientists she needed to finish.

And then she had a date to look forward to.

Life was looking up for Lydia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These will be the last few chapters I'll be posting to Trust The Instinct as its own, separate fic. I will be reincorporating these into Talking Cure from here on out, and will be retroactively incorporating all these separate bits into Talking Cure.


	12. (11) Derek - At the Hospital

Derek was just leaving the grocery store when he got the call.

Given what happened last time he answered Stiles’ call, he was sorely tempted to ignore it.

But that wasn’t something they could really afford.

The instinct proved true when Derek had barely answered and the first thing he heard was Stiles’ panicked, "You need to get to hospital ASAP."

"What?" Derek demanded. “Why? What hap-”

"There was a thing at school, kanima attacked in detention, long story — but Erica got some of the venom and she started seizing or something," Stiles said. Derek listened, hearing the sound of sirens in the background. "Too much noise for us to just sneak her out, so the ambulances are taking us to the hospital. I don't — I don't know what to do."

Stiles sounded terrified — something Derek was startled to realize was a very foreign sound. The boy always got scared in the face of danger, but he usually did his best never to show it, instead facing danger with anger and determination.

Cursing under his breath, Derek shoved his groceries into the car before diving behind the wheel. "Just hold on, and if you can, make sure to get me at least a few moments alone with her. I can fix this."

"Yeah, that'll work out," Stiles said, voice dripping sarcasm and fear in equal measures. "Get a male former murder suspect in his mid-twenties a few minutes alone with a teenage girl in the middle of treatment for a seizure."

"Whose fault is it that I was a murder suspect?" Derek pointed out, peeling out of the parking lot and heading straight for the hospital.

Stiles sighed. "Just get there, all right?"

"On my way," Derek said, and hung up.

He could hear the ambulance sirens from what must have been miles away. He heard when they cut out because they reached the school. He didn't go to the school, though, instead going straight to the hospital, then past it and parking a few blocks away.

The next fifteen minutes were not the most nerve-wracking in his life, but they still shook him to his core as he listened to the ambulance pull in. He was already getting ready to round into the emergency reception with some vague plan of kidnapping Erica to help her properly or something, and it was only seeing and hearing the familiar Jeep that stopped him. He sighed in relief when he saw Stiles and Scott leap out — even moreso when he realized Allison wasn't with them. He slid into a shallow corner as he waited, texting Scott to ask where Erica was and where they would be.

It took almost half an hour, and Scott texted updates as best as he could — which wasn't much, since he wasn't Erica's family. Luckily, Mrs. McCall was on-duty, and was used to me checking on my friends in here.

He was nearly clawing at his own flesh by the time Scott texted him a room number and how Derek could get up there. It took another ten minutes to be able to climb various walls and windows to get to the room without being seen. In the end, he found the room with their heartbeats and hints of their scents. He reached it and tapped on the glass.

Scott let him in, saying quietly, "Please tell me there's a way to help her fast...? My mom let us in to keep her company, but the doctor's coming to see her in a few minutes!"

Derek looked at the bed, where Stiles was trying to soothe Erica, who was shivering and writhing in the sheets. She was still dressed in her school clothes. There were two other beds in the room — but thankfully, both were empty.

"What happened?" he asked, stalking over to look at Erica himself, trying to understand from her scent and her state.

"Kanima in the library," Stiles said. "Ja- The kanima is being controlled by someone else, and they know we're onto them. The attack was to give us a message."

Derek's head snapped up at the slip-up. Gripping the plastic bed rail as tight as he could without breaking it, he asked, "Is Jackson the kanima?"

Stiles looked desperately at Scott, and that was all the answer Derek needed. He opened his mouth, but Scott was at his side, cutting him off.

"We're not going to let you kill him," Scott said. His own hand was gentle where it landed on the bed rail right next to Derek's — but that just made the clicking of his claws all the more ominous. "Not without trying to cure him, first."

"Cure?" Derek demanded. "Like you wanted to cure yourself?"

Scott opened his mouth, but this time it was Stiles cutting him off, snapping, "Guys! Erica. Seizure. Doctors and cops on the way!"

Derek narrowed his eyes at Scott, but turned sharply away. He studied Erica, and reached for her neck where the kanima usually struck. He grimaced at the cut — and at the realization as to just what was wrong with Erica.

"It's her healing ability," he said, taking her arm into his hands. "Fighting off the venom and fighting off the seizure. It's playing hell with her central nervous system and leaving both processes in limbo. She's not getting worse, but she can't get better."

"So how do we fix it?" Stiles said.

Derek swallowed. "Get her body to heal something else — something to force the magic away from her brain stem and spinal cord long enough to let them run their course or strong enough to start from scratch."

"...something else?" Stiles said. His face and shoulders fell in resigned dread as he figured out what that meant.

Scott's jaw was so tense it was in danger of becoming symmetrical again, but he nodded. "What can we do?"

Derek shut his eyes, already loathing himself for what he was about to ask.

"I hate to say this," he growled. "But hold her down, and be ready to gag her. I can heal her, fast, but it'll hurt. A lot."

"This feels so wrong," Scott said, looking up uncertainly at Derek. "On so many levels."

"This is wrong on so many levels," Derek snapped. "So do it fast, because we're three boys about to hold down and gag a helpless girl, and we have no way of explaining why."

Scott leaned forward to press his weight down on Erica's shoulders. With a murmured count of three — two — one, Derek cursed every decision he ever made that lead to this moment as he snapped her arm.

Erica jerked, Scott straining to hold her down as Stiles clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her keen. Thank god she wasn't conscious enough to scream.

He hated that this was even a thought he could have.

Before she could wake up, he immediately reset the broken bone, too — which had the doubled effect of throwing her healing factor into overdrive. For a brief moment, she went abruptly still, enough that Derek, in a panic, laid his ear down against her chest, just to be sure her heart was still beating.

It was, and a moment later, it ticked up just the slightest when Stiles murmured, "Erica?"

"Stiles?" she asked, sounding exhausted and surprised in equal measures. "Derek?"

Derek pulled away to look up to her opening eyes, nodding. "I'm here."

Erica smiled tiredly, then looked around herself, then at Stiles.

"I called Derek while we were waiting for the ambulances," Stiles explained. "The kanima got you in the neck with its tail when you were fighting it."

She swallowed.

"Thanks," she said. "You make a good Batman."

Scott looked as confused as Derek felt, both of them blinking in bewilderment. Stiles, however, smiled, eyes wet and lips wobbling as he nodded, reaching up to stroke some hair back from Erica's face. "And you're an amazing Catwoman. I can't believe you actually figured out how to fight in those heels."

"Used to practice," Erica murmured. "When I was little."

"It paid off," Stiles promised, clasping one of Erica's hands in both of his own.

Derek looked at Scott, but Scott still looked as lost as Derek felt.

"What happened after I seized?" Erica asked.

Stiles swallowed, glanced nervously up at Derek, but then decided Erica was more important.

Derek agreed.

"The kanima," Stiles started. He stopped, then started again. "It's Jackson. Whoever is controlling it is onto us. Jackson paralyzed you and Matt, then wrote a message at the rest of us to stay away, or Jackson would come after us next.”

"But why am I here?" Erica asked. "And what-"

"However the venom works, it's close enough to the parts of the brain or nervous system that have something to do with your seizures," Derek said. "Your healing factor went nuts. Tried to heal two big problems happening in the same place, couldn't heal either one."

"We broke your arm to jumpstart it," Stiles said.

We.

Stiles could have said 'he', just Derek, blaming him. But no. 'We'.

"Oh..." she looked over at Derek. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Derek said. "I just hurt you. Stiles was the one who called me."

"Still," Erica said, twitching her hand until Derek grabbed it. "Glad you're my alpha."

God, if only she knew what a terrible alpha he really was. With a sigh, Derek leaned down to press his forehead to hers. "I — I can't stay, I'm not even supposed to be here."

Derek nuzzled his cheek to hers, then stood upright. His brow furrowed as he saw Scott glance between Derek and Erica in bewilderment. Well — he supposed that was understandable. Scott had no experience with affection from one werewolf to another.

What a depressing thought. But also a surprisingly explanatory one, now that he thought about it.

"Thanks," Erica repeated, smiling with an oddly knowing look in her eyes.

"I don't want to leave," he admitted. "You shouldn't be alone."

"Her family is on the way," Scott said. Derek could tell he was trying to be reassuring, but Derek snarled, startling both the boys.

"They're the reason why I don't want to leave," Derek snapped, looking down at the part of Erica's arm he'd just broken. It was dark with bruising, but that would be gone soon. Hopefully, everyone would be too focused on her seizure to think about X-raying her. "Even if this were a normal seizure, she deserves better than apathy and anger."

At that, Erica rolled her eyes — with fondness, not derision.

"Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, here, can keep me company once my parents show up," she said, tilting her head from Scott to Stiles. The former looked indignant, while the latter snorted in amusement. "I'll be fine. Promise."

Derek looked between Scott and Stiles, and-

He believed her.

"Thank you," he said. Both boys' eyes widened in shock, and Derek scowled. He wasn't that bad.

Was he?

Before he could ask, Erica and Scott both snapped up to the door, and Derek listened for what they'd heard.

"That's my cue," he said to a confused and irritated Stiles, striding to the window. He leaped onto the sill, looked down at the ledge, then looked back in. "When they ask you what happened-"

"There was a weird smell in the library," Stiles said. "And then Matt collapsed, Jackson got sick, and suddenly: boom." He gestured between himself and Scott. "We cooked this up when we realized the ambulances were outside and we wouldn't be able to get out of there."

"There was no fire," Derek pointed out. He frowned, wondering how they would pin everything on an explosion.

Stiles shrugged. "But there was nothing else, either, so that's all they've got. Besides, this means school will shut down for a week or so while they try to figure things out, which gives us all time to recover." He paused, then looked to Scott. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone, handing it to Scott. "Call Allison, and let her know the story."

From behind Stiles and in front of Scott, Erica smiled at Derek, looking oddly proud of Stiles. If he were being honest with himself, Derek could relate.

Instead of thanking them again, Derek managed to swing up just as two sets of footprints paused in front of the door to her room. Derek snapped the window closed with his heel as someone pressed down on the handle, and he was just out of sight as those two footprints walked in.

Just in time. And, as Derek listened, he frowned as he realized who it was that was accompanying the doctor.

_"Dad?"_ Stiles asked, as Sheriff Stilinski said, _"Stiles?"_ And then a moment later, _"Erica?!"_

_"Hi, Sheriff,"_ Erica murmured — and only half of that exhaustion was an act.

_"What happened?"_ the man demanded.

_"Sheriff,"_ the doctor said. _"If you can please wait a moment while I take a look at Miss Reyes' condition..."_

_"Yeah, yeah, right,"_ the Sheriff said. There was a scuff of movement — some form of body language, then. _"Sorry. Boys, let's go talk outside."_

_"I'm fine,"_ Erica insisted to her doctor.

Derek smiled sadly as he heard the two Stilinskis move across the room, Scott right behind them. Erica started playing the doctor around her little finger and insisting everything had only looked worse than it actually was.

He may not be able to trust Scott or Stiles, but strangely enough, he could still count on them to try and help anyone in need.

_"Okay, before we begin — how well do you know this girl?"_ the Sheriff demanded. Judging by the tone of his voice, he was addressing Stiles. _"Because I'd never even heard of her before this week, and suddenly she's sneaking into your bedroom and you're with her in the hospital?"_

_"It's, uh, complicated-"_ Stiles began.

_"She snuck into your room?!"_ Scott cut in.

Stiles let out the most forlorn sigh Derek had ever heard in his life, and he smirked at the thought of all the awkwardness Stiles was about to face.

With surprisingly less tension , Derek made his way down the side of the building, keeping out of sight and not bothering to come up with a way to come back again before Erica checked back out.

She was in good hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These will be the last few chapters I'll be posting to Trust The Instinct as its own, separate fic. I will be reincorporating these into Talking Cure from here on out, and will be retroactively incorporating all these separate bits into Talking Cure.


	13. (11) Danny - Parking Lot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter that will be independently published. From here on out, Everyone Has a Story/Trust the Instinct will remain incorporated into the Winter Wolves main series directly, instead of being posted separately.

The morning after the explosion in the library, Danny breathed a sigh of relief as he started to back out of the security office. The computers were already whirring back into sleep-mode, and the off-beige carpet muffled his steps without leaving footprints behind, the perfect carpet for illicit activity.

An old, familiar rush of victory was starting to pump through his veins at the realization he might actually get out of the administrative office without anyone seeing him-

"And what, exactly, are you doing here, young man?"

Danny froze.

Never mind, then.

Turning slowly, he fought not to flinch at Principal Argent standing in the doorway to his office, right by the security office entrance.

"Um, hi, sir," Danny said.

Mr. Argent’s eyebrow crept closer to the wisps of white hair on his head. “We don’t have school today. The doors are only open for the teachers’ administrative purposes.”

Danny nodded. "I know, I just figured that since you were all here today, I could take care of something before Spring Break.” Damn, was that the best he could come up with, right now? He was really off his game. “I wanted to ask, um, Mrs. Argent about, uh..." He rattled his brain. "Parking permits!"

"I see," Mr. Argent said. He smiled, but like he knew something Danny didn't. His proprietary gaze was...kind of creepy, actually. "And that necessitated you going into the security office?"

"I was looking for her," Danny said. "But I couldn't find her, so I'll come in a week. First thing after Spring Break is over."

He started to turn to go away, but Mr. Argent shook his head. "I may be old, but I am not blind nor deaf," he said. His voice made Danny's hair stand on their ends. "It's not a big office, Daniel — it is Daniel, right? It shouldn't have taken you twenty minutes to search for her. You wouldn't even need to step into it to look for her there."

Danny swallowed. Had he been watching all along or something? "I...um..."

"Why don't you tell me the truth?" the man asked. He stepped forward until he was less a foot away from Danny — and standing in front of the only exit back out to the main hallway.

Biting his lip, Danny glanced back at the security office. "I just..." He took a deep breath. All the best lies had a bit of truth to them. "Everyone's talking about the gas leak explosion in the library, and I just thought that..."

That everyone was lying about it. That there was no way everyone could be fine after something like that. That there was something Jackson and Lydia and everybody else has been lying about for months.

That Danny was getting sick of being left out of the loop.

"If I can get the footage first," Danny said, going for his most charming smile possible. "My video channel's subscriber count would at least double, and my Friends lists everywhere else would shoot through the roof."

The principal raised an amused eyebrow as he clasped his hands behind his back, staring Danny down. "You were willing to break into our security office and steal confidential footage just to be more popular online?"

"Well...it sounds so bad when you put it like that," Danny admitted. And it was.

Thank god he wasn't actually that shallow.

Mr. Argent smiled, small and amused. "You know, attempting to break into offices you aren't authorized for is a serious infraction. As is hacking any school computers and taking video records without permission."

"I didn't take anything, though!" Danny objected. "There wasn't anything to take."

Mr. Argent nodded. "I know. We wanted to find out what happened, too. It seems the explosion from the gas leak must have knocked out the cameras."

Danny nodded along, even though he knew it was BS. "That would explain it. So there's really no footage?"

Mr. Argent shook his head, advancing forward again. "Though given that several of your friends were there, I'm surprised you would need it."

Between the reception counter and the diving wall between offices, Mr. Argent made the space almost claustrophobic. But stepping backwards away from the man would be...noticeable. "You are not unpopular, young man," Mr. Argent added.

Danny smiled wanly, wishing he could back away. Unfortunately, he got the feeling that if he did, Mr. Argent would notice.

"I know," Danny said instead. "But I just...people can be pretty competitive online, and they're really big on proof like pictures or video, and I have so many computer restrictions as it is..."

"Yes, I heard," Mr. Argent said, his smile a little too sharp for a friendly old man. "I've seen the juvenile court orders, and I've been told you are not allowed into the media center without supervision."

"They dropped the charges!" Danny immediately protested, though out of habit rather than actual indignation.

"But the records haven't been sealed yet, and they won't be until you are eighteen," Mr. Argent said. "And you are standing on thin ice as it is."

As if he needed the reminder.

The old charges were almost the only thing his parents bothered to talk to him about.

At least they still hadn’t even tried to learn anything about computers and cybersecurity since his arrest.

Danny’s Spring Break plans wouldn’t be going forward if they had. Or at the very least, he would’ve had to put actual effort into his lies.

"So am I in trouble, then?" Danny asked, wondering if there was any point in imploring the man not to suspend him. Or worse. They couldn't expel for this...could they?

"Hmm..." A predatory smile crawled along his face as he clasped his hands behind his back. "Well, I remember being your age, long ago as it was. I always wanted my friends to think the best of me, too. And I know we couldn't capture any video of the library incident, which means you didn't actually take anything."

Yup. Danny tried to break the rules, but he didn't actually do it.

For once.

"So how about we only have a week's detention for snooping into the security office without authorization, and call it a day?" Mr. Argent said, clapping a congenial hand on Danny's shoulder.

The relief Danny felt at not getting suspended was mitigated by the desire to crawl out of his own skin under Mr. Argent's tight grip and tighter gaze. But Danny nodded anyway, desperate to get out of here. "Yeah, that — thank you, Mr. Argent. I really am sorry about this."

"I believe you," Mr. Argent said, with a tone of voice implying he really, really didn't. He shook Danny's shoulder as he said, "Just make sure I don't catch you trying to break in here again."

"You won't, Mr. Argent, I promise," Danny said. And it was true.

He would be smarter, next time.

"Good," the man said, pushing on Danny's shoulder to turn him around and patting his back. "Now, while the teachers have to be here, today, _students_ do not. You go enjoy your spring break."

"Right," Danny said, stepping towards the door as fast as possible without being rude. "Have a good day, Mr. Argent!"

He had never been so glad to get out of the office and away from a teacher.

Or, well, a principal.

Out of habit, he almost turned left to go to his locker. Only at the last second did he remember that school was closed for the day, and turn right to head back out to the parking lot.

There were two things he’d wanted to take care of by coming to the school, today — and going through the security footage was only one of them.

The other reason was waiting for him in the parking lot.

With Spring Break around the corner anyway, and the cause of the library explosion (and thus the risk to the rest of the school) still unknown, school shut down a day early.

That left a few unattended cars at school, after several kids had to be rushed to the hospital yesterday.

Including Jackson’s Porsche.

It was pretty quiet. Not everyone bothered to check their phones or e-mails this early in the morning, so every few minutes some kid would pull up to the school in a car. They'd look around the empty lot and the closed doors, shrug, and drive away.

A few loitered, presumably to be safe as they checked their phones in confusion — especially since the teachers were still showing up, presumably to round out some last-minute business before they started their own break.

Danny supposed he wasn’t helping, either, standing there with his backpack. None of them had to know his tablet and computer were only there in case he needed to shove some evidence into Jackson’s face. There were two other cars waiting, Matt’s and Allison’s.

Inexplicably, Stiles’ jeep also pulled up to the school. Danny doubted Stiles would have missed the alert about the school’s early closure. But then, there were a lot of things Danny would never have imagined happening up until a few months ago, or even a few weeks ago.

Even weirder: they parked on the other side of the lot from the waiting cars, but made no move to get out.

…were they watching _Allison’s_ car?

That was a level of creepy that Danny did not understand, and didn’t really want to.

(Though he also got the feeling he wouldn’t have a choice.)

A few minutes after Danny got there, the Mrs. Whittemore’s familiar BMW pulled up by the parking gate. Jackson clambered out of his mom’s car, not even looking over to the Porsche yet as he said something to his mom, closed the door, and waved as she drove away.

He turned around, and spotted Danny. Even from a hundred yards away, Danny could see him sigh in something like defeat as he made his way over.

"Dude!" Danny called out, as soon as Jackson was in ear shot. "What the hell happened, yesterday?"

"That's none of your business," Jackson ground out, coming to a halt by the hood of the Porsche. "Now get off my car."

Danny crossed his arms, leaning even further back against the driver's side door. "Not until you tell me what happened in the library."

"...I don't remember," Jackson started.

"Bullshit!" Danny snapped.

"And even if I did, it's none of your business!" Jackson finished, all but shouting.

"Yeah, it is," Danny snapped, unfolding his arms and shifting his weight. "Just because you seemed to have forgotten that we’re best friends, doesn’t mean I have.”

It took him a moment to realize he'd stood up completely, pushing away from the car in a desperate attempt to loom over Jackson. Unfortunately, it was a moment too long. Jackson reached over and yanked the door open — one which he must've unlocked remotely.

Danny hip-checked it shut. "NO!" he snapped.

Between all the confused kids in the student lot and the teachers milling around the lot by the school doors, Danny was sure his shout drew a lot of attention toward them. He didn't care.

"Danny," Jackson pleaded.

That stopped him.

Because Jackson was-

Well.

Jackson.

He was the cockiest asshole ever to walk the halls of Beacon Hills High School. He never stopped acting like he thought he was better than everyone, and unless he was trying to sweet-talk someone or charm a girl, he never said 'please'.

Jackson Whittemore was incapable of begging for anything.

Until now.

Danny looked his angry best friend up and down.

"...you're not kidding," he realized, his gut sinking through the asphalt beneath his feet. "You really don't remember, do you?"

"That's none of your business," Jackson repeated, his firm voice shaking. "Now stop blocking my car!"

Danny eased back, freeing the door to Jackson's car, but not pushing away from it.

"Why don't you remember?" Danny demanded. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing's wrong," Jackson started, reaching for the handle again.

"Does it have to do with what happened to Lydia?" Danny demanded. "Or — after?"

Jackson frowned, fingers resting against the handle, but not opening his car door. "What do you mean, 'after'?"

Danny crossed his arms again. "Lydia went crazy at the same time you started acting weird." He reached out to poke Jackson in the chest. "Scott and Stiles are acting weird _again_ — and the last time they were, it ended with Scott’s girlfriend’s aunt turning out to be a serial killer and the one behind all those deaths…except people are still dying-” He jerked his head back, toward the jeep still lurking on the other side of the lot. “ _They’re_ still acting weird, and then they fucking _kidnapped_ you!” And now they were here stalking people. Again. Hell, they were probably watching this fight right now. “On top of that, you keep zoning out, forgetting things, ditching me and the team-! This isn’t like you, Jackson.”

Jackson's jaw clenched. "I have migraines," he lied, opening the car door and sliding into his car.

Danny didn't let him settle in the seat. He wrapped a hand around Jackson's bicep and yanked him back out, nearly clipping Jackson's head before slamming him against the backseat window.

"The hell you do!" Danny snapped. “After everything that’s happened, you expect me to believe that? You don’t even sound like _you_ believe it!” He swallowed, then said in a softer voice, “Dude, I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I don’t need your help,” Jackson snarled.

Danny opened his mouth to try and lay out all of Jackson's bullshit in one go.

But before he could, Jackson brought his arm up and managed to elbow Danny right in the shoulder, shoving him against the Porsche. Danny's backpack dug into his kidneys as what felt like a small train slammed into his shoulder.

Danny shouted in pain, crumpling by the car and blinking the spots of black out of his vision as Jackson scrambled into the Porsche.

"Stay out of it!" Jackson shouted at him, before slamming the door shut.

When the Porsche roared to life, Danny scrambled back, pulling his legs away from the car. In Jackson's current mood, Danny had no doubt the other boy would run over Danny's foot. (Even this close to the championship game.)

Jackson turned in his seat and looked backwards as he backed out, until he was far enough to look forward again.

When he did, Danny's breath caught at the look on his face.

Jackson was terrified.

Danny opened his mouth to yell after him, but scrambling up made his back and his shoulder freeze up, tensing half his body as his nerves lit up like a wildfire. By the time he loosened up and was able to blink his way through the pain, Jackson's Porsche was gone.

For a few moments, Danny blinked stupidly from where he was sprawled across the empty parking spot, wondering-

"What the hell was _that_?!"

Danny turned his head to see Coach Finstock jogging up to him, coming from the teachers' parking lot.

"Coach?" Danny asked, confused.

"What just happened?" Coach slowed to a halt, and reached a hand down toward Danny. With a groan, Danny let himself be pulled up, wincing when his backpack pulled against his shoulder. "Why was Jackson attacking you?" He frowned. “I don’t want to suspend you-”

"It’s okay, I..." Gingerly, Danny readjusted the weight of his backpack, so they weren't on top of what Danny was sure was about to be some spectacular bruising. "I asked him about what happened in the library yesterday."

“That doesn’t justify a fight,” Coach said. With a grumpy frown, he added, “But it’s not like I can prove that it happened.” Meaning he wouldn't have to risk suspending anyone this close to the championship game. Looking between Danny and the direction that Jackson just drove off in, he asked, “Did he at least say anything about what happened?”

Danny looked past Coach, towards the gate between the student parking lot, and the front street to the school.

"He doesn't remember," Danny said.

Coach opened his mouth, but Danny shook his head, turned, and walked away. He had no idea what his face looked like, but given that Finstock was currently not bothering to chase after him and demand answers, Danny could guess how bad it was.

Gripping his backpack straps tight, Danny stalked over toward the other side of the school lot.

Toward the jeep, to be exact.

If he had to deal with stalkers, he might as well see if they knew anything useful.

"Hey, Stiles!" he called out, when Stiles rolled down the window as Danny approached. "Scott!” He crossed his arms when he stood outside the jeep. “Either of you wanna tell me what happened yesterday?”

“We don’t know,” Scott answered immediately.

Danny raised an eyebrow.

“Then what are you doing here?” Danny demanded. “School’s closed.”

“We could be asking you the same question,” Stiles pointed out.

“As if you didn’t just watch me and Jackson talking,” Danny said, gritting his teeth as his shoulder throbbed.

“You call that talking?!” Stiles said.

Taking a deep breath, Danny then asked, “Why the hell did you guys kidnap him?”

Scott and Stiles froze, and he could see the slight shift in Stiles’ head as he tried to look at Scott’s eyes in his rearview mirror.

“It was a prank,” Stiles said finally. “It just…got a little out of hand.”

Gritting his teeth, Danny snapped, “A little? You call kidnapping someone and holding them prisoner ‘a little’ out of hand?!”

Stiles’ face hardened. “If you knew what kind of crap he was involved in-”

“Well I don’t know!” Danny cried out, throwing up his arms in exasperation. His shoulder protested the movement, and he dropped his arms again, clutching the straps his backpack and shifting the weight off the bad shoulder. “That’s the problem!”

“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Stiles said. With a sharp, humorless grin, he said, “Have a nice Spring Break,” and then rolled up his window.

It was only a window. They couldn’t make him walk away, but right now, Danny didn’t want to press his luck on breaking into a cop’s kid’s car when said kid was still _in_ it.

With an angry grunt bursting out from low in his throat, he turned around to head towards the curb where his own car was waiting for him.

But he stopped when he realized that at some point, Matt arrived, and was waving to Danny from over by his own car.

“Hey!” Matt called out, though his face started to fall as Danny approached. “I was going to ask, if…you know what, never mind-”

"What?" Danny snapped. At Matt's face, Danny took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he said. "You're not the one I'm mad at. What's up?"

"It's nothing," Matt said, shaking his head. "Based on — that." He gestured between Danny, and the jeep that still lurked in the distance. "I don't think I should-"

"What?" Danny repeated.

With a wince, Matt said, "I was going to ask what that was about, but, uh…”

Danny shook his head.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said. He gestured toward the bandage still taped to Matt’s temple, with another one on the back of his neck. “How are you?” With a pause, he asked, “Can you tell me what happened yesterday?”

Matt shrugged, apologetic. “I don’t know,” he said, a hopeless look on his face. “I remember going through the books, sparks everywhere as lights blew out — then I guess a book fell off a shelf and hit me on the head, since everything goes kinda fuzzy. Lots of yelling, then Mrs. Argent telling me she called an ambulance and that she was calling my parents.” With an apologetic shrug, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Danny said. “Not your fault that things have been…weird, lately.”

Matt nodded. “I’ve…” He made a slight coughing noise. “No one’s telling me what happened, either.”

Danny looked up in surprise.

“I mean — they’re saying it was some kind of explosion, which I guess makes sense…except I don’t remember smelling any gas. And even if there was a leak of some kind, what started it? Something still has to spark it.”

Leaning against Matt’s car, Danny admitted, “I don’t buy it, either…which is why I just went into the security office to look for footage of the explosion.”

Matt paled, and Danny winced. Right.

Most kids’ idea of spying was to pester teachers for gossip or snoop on fellow students. Breaking into offices, hacking computers, or going through security cameras scared the shit out of most people — let alone all three at once.

Danny forgot, given that it was literally child’s play for him.

"What happened?" Matt asked, leaning against his car. "Did you get it?"

Danny bit his lip. "Mr. Argent caught me."

"What?!" Matt asked, eyes wide. "What did he — are you in trouble?"

Shaking his head, Danny said, "No, I — he caught me on my way out, but he only gave me a week's detention. Nothing too serious, and I can even keep my parents from finding out."

"Oh..." Matt cocked his head to the side as he fiddled with his keys. "He just let you go?"

"Yeah, after he lectured and...and stuff..." Danny pursed his lips, remembering Mr. Argent's unsettling gaze and tone of voice. "God, he's creepy. No wonder his daughter turned into a psychopath. I'm more surprised Allison and her dad _didn't_."

Matt looked sympathetic. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Danny said. "He didn't do anything, he just... _is_ creepy."

"...so did you get the video?" Matt asked a moment later. He seemed caught between wanting to know more about Mr. Argent and wanting to know about what happened to himself in the library.

"No, but only because there was no footage to take," Danny said, shrugging his over-stuffed backpack, only to wince at the pain from where Jackson hit him. "He said that there was no video because the explosion knocked out the cameras. But I was in the system...and someone deleted it, or disabled the cameras beforehand."

Matt's eyes widened. "What?!"

"Yeah," Danny said, finally setting his backpack on the ground, before reaching up to rub at his throbbing shoulder. "I took a look around when I couldn't find anything, and...well. Are you familiar with how security cameras, time-stamps, and logging systems work?"

Shaking his head, Matt frowned as he looked at the shoulder Danny was rubbing. Thankfully, he didn’t comment on it, instead answering, "Most of what I know about computers is photography stuff."

"Well, long story short, the physical cameras were fine. Something or someone either shut off the recording programs, or the cameras took footage that was deleted afterward."

"So...someone is covering up the explosion?" Matt asked. Danny nodded. "Is it Mr. Argent, or is he covering up the cover-up?"

Danny shook his head. "I have no idea." With a sigh, he added, "Are you sure you don't remember anything?"

"Positive," Matt said, gesturing to the gauze still taped to his neck and his temple. "One minute I was sorting books, next minute I was in an ambulance. My head still hurts from the concussion."

"Headaches all around," Danny muttered under his breath. At Matt's confused look, he added, "Jackson's been having migraines."

Matt pursed his lips in something that looked like frustration. Huh.

"Is that what you guys were…talking…about?" Matt asked, jerking his chin towards the middle of the lot where Jackson’s Porsche had been.

"Yeah," Danny admitted. "I just — he's already been having migraines and blackouts, and this on top of that?" He frowned, pausing to glance over his pained shoulder, though not actually looking over it. "And he shouldn't have even been there, anyway. He's got a restraining order against Scott and Stiles after they kidnapped him!"

"Wasn't it some kind of prank?" Matt asked, gaze flickering to the Jeep over Danny’s shoulder. At least he was smart enough not to actually turn his head and look at them.

Danny sighed. "I don't know. Stiles is an asshole and I can see him doing it, but _Scott_?" He shook his head. "There's something weird going on around here, Matt."

"You're telling me," Matt muttered. He reached out to pat Danny's good shoulder — the same shoulder Mr. Argent had been patting earlier.

Matt’s touch was much more appreciated.

“I’m going down to L.A. to meet up with a friend of mine,” Danny said. “She’s…pretty good with security stuff. I’m going to ask her for some help. If they don’t give us any real answers by the time we get back from break, I figured we could get some on our own.”

A slow smile crawled over Matt’s face, dimples filled with hope and eyes brightening up. “Awesome!” he said, his hand still on Danny’s good shoulder. The touch practically burned through the thin cotton of Danny’s shirt. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Not sure,” Danny said. “But even if there isn’t — whatever I find, I’ll tell you.”

Matt nodded. “Well have fun in L.A., then, with your…” He frowned. “Wait, I thought you were gay?”

“I am,” Danny said with an eyeroll. “I meant it when I said she’s my friend. More like a mentor, really.”

“Then have fun with your friend. See you after...are you gone all break?”

“No,” Danny said. With a softer, hopefully more inviting smile, he said, “See you at the rave next week?”

Matt nodded, with a smile. “It’s a date.”

Danny’s heart skipped a beat at _date_ , even as Matt obliviously climbed into his car and drove off.

“He doesn’t mean anything by it,” Danny reminded himself, reshouldering his backpack and slinking back to his own car — for real, this time. “He’s probably straight, and _definitely_ going with Allison.”

But still — not-so-straight guys were pretty squirrely about admitting it to themselves, sometimes, and overcompensated. And everyone knew Allison and Scott only had eyes for each other. Maybe that’s why Matt was going with her? Because he knew it wouldn’t hurt her feelings if he didn’t end the date with her?

And Danny had _just_ reminded Matt that he’s gay, and Matt had said ‘date’ anyway. That had to count for something, right?”

_“Totally!”_ Skye said, when Danny called her to let her know he was on his way and unload his latest personal woes onto her. _“Hey, it’s Los Angeles — we can squeeze in a shopping date while you’re here, get you the best rave outfit we can find. Matt won't know what hit him.”_

Danny grinned, getting onto the highway that would take him down south. “Thanks, Skye.”

_“Seeya soon, Cubie,”_ she said.

“Seeya,” Danny answered, hanging up and exiting the encryption tools.

His teammates were stonewalling him, his friend’s ex-girlfriend was going crazy, and his _best_ friend was hiding things from him.

But Danny’s crush was possibly taking him out on a date, and he had a fun and productive week in Los Angeles ahead of him.

Spring Break was looking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned above, this is the last chapter that will be independently published. From here on out, Everyone Has a Story/Trust the Instinct will remain incorporated into the Winter Wolves main series directly, instead of being posted separately.
> 
> My sincerest apologies to those of you who stuck with me through my dual-posting experiment. Thanks for sticking with me. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think! I'd love to know what parts you liked (or disliked) the most. Constructive criticism is ♥.
> 
> If you're as stoked about the series finale as I am, and/or as sad to see to see the end of the show, come say hi on the [Teen Wolf Discord server](https://discordapp.com/invite/vJrxTRH)! ♥
> 
> I know there are a lot of fics in this AU and it just keeps growing. If you're struggling to keep track of the different stories in it, I started **[Phase 1](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13390242)** \- a strictly chronological posting of the series.


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